


Healing

by lumesar



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Pen Pals, Post Breaking Dawn, Supernatural creatures offcanon, freeform stuff - Freeform, long distance stuff, slowburn ish, the wolves will appear but I'll tag them later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:14:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28079007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumesar/pseuds/lumesar
Summary: Leah's journey as she finds the words to build friendships, forgive herself, and a few other things, finding love included.
Relationships: Leah Clearwater/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 27





	1. Meet Mary

The idea didn’t come to her like lightning, striking her at once. It happened gradually, like droplets hanging in the air create mist, a sequence of small actions that resulted in a larger solution.

Leah’s mom had been the first metaphorically flick on the side of her head. Sue hated to see her daughter distressed, and the fact that that had become her standard pained her mother's heart. She would never give up on the idea of pushing Leah towards her own happiness. 

“You should come with me to work more often.” Is her offer. Leah remembered when her dad had just died and her mom had wanted any distraction, barely processing when she had accepted the resting home assistance job. On those first days, she went along, more to keep an eye on her mother than anything else. 

Slowly, she saw how helping gave her a sense of purpose, and realized her presence there wasn’t needed.

“I... Thanks, mom. I’m good.” She did her best to not lash out her issues on her mom, who was definitely the last person to deserve it. 

“When your dad passed,” Sue started, walking towards the living room with a laundry basket and sitting on the couch close to her. Leah mindlessly helped with the motion, folding socks together as she heard her mom speaking “what helped was the stories. It made me focus less on my own pain and more on the incredible things these people had seen and heard. They really have a lot to tell, but so few to listen.”

“Are you asking this for me or them?” Leah grumbles, putting the folded socks in a corner of the couch. Her mom, on the other hand, is folding shirts, carefully setting them on the coffee table in piles. 

Sue gives her a nurturing smile. 

“Sometimes I look at you and I see the older ones,” her mom admits, with the kind of insight she reserved for alone conversations. “you carry the same weight upon your shoulders, the same silent pains.”

Leah scoffs. Her pain was nothing but silent, trashing around her mind like a caged beast. She tried to tame her pains, but they would cry on her ears and taint her heart for so long it became a second, constant choir of her own misery.

 _You can try to love, love, love, but no one ever stays._

A constant melody. No one in the pack would believe that she actually tried to keep the worst from them, that the cacophony they would complain about was the lesser ones, the better days. Leah felt cursed by all she could remember, all she could feel, and she hated the pity that having her thoughts scrutinized brought towards her.

“But you’re just a kid.” Sue stops folding a plaid shirt - Charlie’s - to hold her daughter’s hand in between hers. “You are so much younger than you think you are, and you have so much to live and discover.”

“And you honestly think listening to old people’s regrets is going to help me?” Leah didn’t mean to sound mad, but she was frustrated.

“I don’t know.” Her confession is honest, and Sue holds her hand in a tight grip for a few moments before letting it go and resuming her activities. “But you would be surprised by the things you can hear from people that don’t have access to our heads.”

*

Leah walks down the beach, hands on her pockets, staring at the horizon line and the rocks that stood in the way. It’s been a long time since she had shifted, not that anyone noticed.

When she left the Uley pack, it had been almost joyful. To not be constantly inside her ex-boyfriend's mind, seeing the happiness he felt without her in her life. 

With her cousin. 

It had been good to escape the jokes, even if it meant spending some time with vampires. She had felt like she and Jake could almost become friends.

And then he had been cursed as well, his mind infested by the _baby_ , which she could not help but find odd, even if his mind was as pure and protective as it could be towards the little leech. 

That short period of time where she could be a wolf and not feel herself drowning on other people’s imprints had been good, even if it included Jacob’s own pains. She was good at understanding pain.

Joy was a different matter. To be able to see and touch but to not have it on her own - that was the bitter encasement her mind had been stuck into whenever she shifted. 

She gets to the end of the beach and quickly climbs a tall rock to sit. Leah still recalled when Sam had imprinted, that short span of time where she rationalized his fate like hers, and she could swear _if it happened to him now, it might soon happen to me, too, I should not be angry at him,_ but that hope had been naive at best, pathetic at worst.

Nowadays she knew that the same glitch that had made her a wolf also made her a loveless creature.

Beyond her, the horizon extends as a constant, an anchor to reality. Leah stretches her neck to gaze upon the sky, trying to see shapes in the big chunks of clouds that seem as firm in the atmosphere as the sand on the beach. A deep sigh comes from her chest.

Making an effort to lessen her mother’s worries would also serve as a good excuse to not shift for some more time. She knew that even if Jacob had not noticed, he was constantly shifting, and one of these days he ought to ask for her. It had happened before, a few months prior, and she didn’t have any hobbies to blame her absence, and he didn’t have the brains to understand anything else besides his own enforced obsession. 

So helping the elderly it is.

*

The resting home had three floors, and was a restored industrial building, with the outsides maintaining the old architecture and the insides renewed, for the sake of mobility, not decoration, Leah would suppose. She was no designer, but the insides were depressing enough as they were without any assistance.

The walls are half oatmeal-colored, half white. The furnish doesn’t go too far from it, most old stuff Leah supposed someone had considered throwing away before giving out. On the first floor, there is a living area occupying most of the space, and there are people playing cards, chess, and similar games. As she walks by she receives some invitations, which she denies with a polite nod.

None of that would really serve as a distraction.

Her feet take her to the second floor, walking through an adapted ramp to get there. She walks through halls of closed doors, trying not to stare at the half-open ones.

“Leah, is that you?” A voice stops her, coming from one of said doors. She stops on her tracks and peeks inside.

The room has the same color pallet as the remaining of the place, but you would not notice it at first. On the walls, there are photos everywhere - from kids, adults, and families, of sunny and rainy places, living rooms, and tourist cliche pictures from across the country. 

In the midst of it is a familiar face, on a familiar body, legs crossed on the bed, a book resting against her knee.   


Recognition hit Leah in a second.

“Teacher Mary?” She had been Leah’s English teacher during sophomore year, but she really didn’t look that old. Not old enough to be there, at least.

“Good to see you remember. Come in, come in.” She closes the book and motions to her. Leah steps inside the room, her eyes darting occasionally to the pictures on the wall. “Sit down.” Hesitantly, she does, sitting by a rocking chair in the corner of the room. “How’s life been treating you?”

 _Life kicked me in the guts once and found a new passion, because it’s all it ever does_. She thinks, but doesn’t say. Leah forces her usual pain and bitterness to take the back seat for a moment. She recalled Mary and her nonthreatening classes. How she introduced a whole class of stupid teenagers with classics by making awful memes out of them, trying to connect. She had missed the mark, as a teacher often does, but the attempt had been endearing enough for her to be one of the few names she really recalled from her school years.

“I’m okay.” Leah had so long been surrounded by her discomforts and reminders of said things that it’s hard to detach from it and find her own person in the middle of the mess inside her mind.

Was that what her mom meant, when talking to people that could not see the insides of her head?

“And you?” She remembers to ask, rubbing her hands on her knees.

“Things are good here, better than I imagined.” Mary points out at the mural behind her. “Some students send me news from time to time, and I’ve made some pen pals that keep me distracted. When I’m not reading, that is.” She chuckles. “You can look if you want.”

Leah is drawn to the pictures, moving away from the chair and staring at those strangers.

“Do you talk to all of them?” She wonders, and it’s only when her former teacher answers that Leah realizes she spoke out loud.

“Most. Some are busy. Fewer passed away.” 

“Do they come to visit you?”

“Hell, no!” Mary’s face contorts in disgust. “Have you seen this place? I would not wish it on any of them.” She laughs. “Also, I’m much more interesting when people aren’t staring at me.” Leah sees her pointing at her legs. 

“Why not? About the visits, I mean.” The younger clarifies.

“La Push is too off route for any of them. The students that went away I would never force to come back. I’m grateful enough as it is, for being remembered.”

Leah sees some familiar features in the pictures, from time to time. A crooked nose shared by some colleague, eyes a little farther apart from another. She connects them with faces and realizes she doesn’t recall any of their names, too enraptured by her heartbreak to focus on those around her.

“Do you dislike being visited?” She blurs out, the realization coming suddenly. “I can go away if that’s the case.”

“No, don’t worry about it. It’s good to talk face to face to someone, if you’re going to be around here. Making company to Sue, I suppose?” 

Leah shrugs.

“I’m more on my own.”

“College work?” Mary tries to guess. 

“College wasn’t really my thing.” Leah is quick to form the phrase. “I could never see myself stuck in a classroom.” That was true.

Mary wraps her fingers together over her lap. 

“You were a great student, if that helps. Always had great arguments for the most unexpected perspectives, at least in comparison to your peers.”

“Did I?” She tilts her head, trying to recall, but that had been the time the pain had been most recent, and everything was blurred by the loss and the betrayal. 

Mary nods and stretches her back towards the bedside, her legs still in the crossed position. 

“Yes. You once made this essay on Rosaline, from Romeo and Juliet, creating all these sorts of possible feelings for her character, even if she’s only mentioned briefly and never appears.”

Once more her memory disappoints Leah, because she can’t even remember who the character was.

“Thank you, I guess.”

It’s Mary's turn to shrug.

“There are so many ways to learn rather than a classroom, I agree. Most of my lessons came from the people I met, and not from old textbooks.”

“What sort of lessons?” Leah asked, and, without knowing, started a new routine for herself.

For the next hour, Mary and she played a game. She would point at a picture and Leah would try to guess the person’s backstory from whatever angle she felt like. It was good because it completely forced Leah to forget about her own self for a while, and when Mary eventually told the true story, it felt as she almost knew them, as well as the lessons they carried.

A few hours before the sunset, a nurse walked by them and told Leah she was invited to leave. 

“Thank you for stopping by.” Mary thanked her. “I understand you must be a very busy person.”

“Not so much, these days.” She admits.

“Well, in that case, there are a lot of people I could introduce you to.” Mary jokes, pointing to the pictures. 

“That... would be nice.” Any distraction of pain was welcoming, and Mary’s company wasn’t a displeasing one. It had been comfortable to speak to her and see how she was able to broadcast all those lives that had crossed hers. 

The nurse shushes her outside to assist her patient and Leah has a few moments feeling lighter before the usual weight returns to her chest, slowing her movement and burdening her mind.

_All those people who can love and be loved back. How bad do you wish that was you?_

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things I want to clear up beforehand, because I don't see myself writing notes that often here.  
> This fic is a challenge to myself. I wanted to write an imprint, but I did not wanted it to be love at first sight. I wanted characters to have a true connection before imprinting, but I also wanted that connection to have the feel of first love, which results in what will come up within the next chapters.  
> I also wanted to try and write Leah, because I think she deserves to be happy. But I wanted to give her that happiness approaching her as she's in canon. And in canon, all she is is this huge ball of heartbreak and anger, so I wanted to expand from that. I hope I did a good job.  
> Also, as I speak this, I have a huge chunk written, over 50k, but it's not finished yet, but I hope to be able to work on that.  
> Comments are welcomed and encouraged, even if it's about my spelling or anything, because I don't have a beta or anything.  
> Sometimes I reffer to the wolves as werewolves and I know that in canon they are shifters. I mean the same thing, so I will try to clear these mistakes, but I might miss it a few times, and I apologize beforehand for that. Also, not american, nor native american. I made research, but I could get things wrong and if anything comes out as harmful, I will see to clear that up.  
> Also, the other supernatural beings referenced in the tags are loosely inspired in a lot of things and one at the same time. I don't want to give it away before it's actually mentioned in the fic, but once more I want to make it clear that the references I got were never meant to disrespect anyone, this is a twilight fanfiction and it's all in good fun.  
> One last thing, I'm neither american nor canadian not do I know how to pilot an airplane. All I know is research and put a few words together in a funny way, so if anything that I say sounds unrealistic or wrong or does not work like that, pretend this is an alternate reality where things are like that, or tell me if it's really bad. Some things had to be twisted and turned in order for a certain cadency to be achieved with the narrative, but you just never know when you put things too far.  
> I think that's all I need to preface. Hope I don't forget anything.  
> If you read this, thank you!


	2. Photographs and biscuits

Sue walks with her on the way home.

“How was it?” She asks her daughter.

“I saw my old high school teacher. Mary, do you know her?”  
  
Sue’s expression drops.  
  
“I do. She’s the youngest person on there, did you know that? A few years younger than me, even.”  
  
“What happened?” Leah can’t help but ask and is surprised to see her mom shaking her head in denial.  
  
“I don’t really gossip about the patients there, dear. You could ask her.”  
  
“Was it that bad?”  
  
Her mom’s expression tells her it was, just as it tells that Sue will not discuss it further. So Leah allows her to change the subject, and remains silent while her mom made her small remarks. She wasn’t a woman to complain, knowing how to keep her pains and frustrations close to her chest.  
  
Leah wonders if she would have learned that if she had not turned into a wolf during her teenage years, having every thought of her known by a series of teenage boys.  
  
She likes to think she would.  
  
When they arrive home, there’s the smell of something burning.   
  
“Seth? Charlie?” Sue screams, worried, moving along Leah to the insides of the house.  
  
In the kitchen, there is smoke, but no fire, thankfully. Charlie is looking at a stove with burnt fish.  
  
“I miscalculated your oven capacities, it seems.” Charlie’s shoulders shrink. “The boy was just trying to help me fix dinner for you.”  
  
Leah tries not to sour as she watches her mom laugh and give Charlie a small peck on the lips. She has nothing against the guy, and she’s glad her mom found someone again.  
  
_Are you, really? How can you be happy for anyone else when the universe think it’s your job to suffer over the same guy for years?_  
  
“This one is trickier,” Sue assures him, and Leah knows it's not, the guy is just a disaster in the kitchen. “Why we don’t order a pizza? Seth, could you do that for us?”  
  
His celebration is obvious as he agrees, calling the nearest place.  
  
That night, her dreams do not hurt as much. They are a recollection of memories - good and bad moments - as they often were, but instead of her and Sam, it was the diverse faces and lives she had known today. When she woke she knew who was meant to be who, and the scenes of her past ached against her tired heart, but she moved against the tides of feelings to get started with her day.  
  
That’s how her nights go by that first month of going back and forth to see Mary, often listening to the tales of all those people. Their subjects start on them and their interests, but end up drifting to all sorts of curious conversations, conversations that, Leah is quick to note, are never too personal.  
  
One of those typical mornings, Leah realizes she woke up far too early to just go to the resting home, and far too late to go back to sleep. She turns around on the bed for a moment, frustrated, before deciding to do something with that extra time.  
  
Surprisingly, Leah finds herself in the kitchen. She was not a bad cook, had spending years watching her mom doing all sorts of dishes. And, before that, she and Emily would bake all the time, together.  
  
The memory hurt. The betrayal hurt. Even if she knew Emily had no free will when it came to the Imprinting, that that poison was inevitable once it coursed through your veins, she still could not help but feel a stung of treason.  
  
_No one can keep their promises around you, Leah, and you have to understand you are the common denominator in this equation._  
  
She focuses on the easy cookie recipe as her mind keeps chanting those vicious words. Leah was used to them by now, by the negativity they steamed around her brain, by how she always had to make that extra effort to not drown in it, like a constant exercise.  
  
Still, she can finish the cookies with no issue, and she separates them into two Tupperware.   
  
When her mom is ready to go, Leah gives one of them to her.  
  
“You talked about how the small things could cheer someone’s day, so...” She looked away, not really knowing how to explain that kind urge that came over her.   
  
Sue, on the other hand, gave a large smile, approached Leah and hold her face with her two hands, before pressing a kiss on her forehead.  
  
“That’s my girl.” She steps away. “Are you going with me?”  
  
Leah nods.   
  
They walk at the same pace, but silent. Leah can hear her own mind boiling, that constant ache dragging her down, although she does her best to silence it.  
  
It had not worked in all those years, it wasn’t about to begin now.  
  
It does not take long for them to arrive, where they are quick to separate from each other, Sue assuming the position of a caretaker with no difficulty.  
  
She follows the same path that leads her to Mary’s quarters, this time being aware of each door that came before. Some people wave at her, and she does it back after a moment of hesitation.  
  
Finally, she finds her previous teacher, half sitting on her bed, her bottom under the covers. The same red book is on her lap.  
  
“Hey, Leah!”  
  
Leah smiles and avoids her glance for a moment.  
  
“Yeah, I... brought cookies.” She approaches the bed and extends the Tupperware towards her.   
  
“That’s so kind of you!” Mary’s voice goes up a pitch, very enthusiastic, in a way that sounds fake. Leah’s skeptical.  
  
“Are you allergic or something? You know you can tell me.” She tries to guess. “You don’t need to pretend to like it.”  
  
Mary looks at her in confusion, then laughs in astonishment.  
  
“I did it again, didn’t I? The teacher’s voice?” She seems to look for something in Leah’s face, which she finds. “I was a teacher for primary classes for a long time, and I kind of got used to being over-excited whenever a student would give me food. Everyone just loves seeing a teacher gush over an apple, right? The habit stuck.”  
  
Her explanation is awkward, but it's that that sells it for Leah, who nods.   
  
“Well, if you could just put it in the counter for me, yes, right there.” She pointed at the small set of shelves by her bed. Leah does so, and Mary is quick to stretch her arm to open the lid and grab one for herself, humming. “This is really good. Have you had one already?”  
  
Leah grabs one of the cookies slowly, giving it a small bite. She had been afraid that she lost all touch with the kitchen, but that had not been the case, apparently.  
  
“Thank you once more for this,” Mary says as soon as she is finished with the first cookie. “Let’s get ready with another story, shall we?” Leah laughs awkwardly. “Tell me, who’s caught your eye in this fine morning?”  
  
She walks towards the pictures, scrutinizing their faces. There was less and less to start a conversation, but eventually one interrupts her search. It’s a very simple picture, casual, of a redhead sitting in front of a window, that looks very much like a selfie printed out.  
  
“Who’s this?”   
  
Mary squints her eyes under her glasses a little, then lets out a joyful sigh.  
  
“That’s Clarissa, my daughter.” Leah looks at the picture then at Mary. They are both white, but there are where the resemblances are over, in Leah’s opinion. The older woman laughs at her confusion. “She’s adopted. I signed the documents because when she lost her mom she was still underage and her brother, Connor, five pictures up, three to the right,” Mary pauses as she watches Leah follow the coordinates with her fingertips, landing on a picture taken afar, of a tall guy in front of an airplane, making a thumbs-up sign, then proceeds to speak when Leah sits down by the rocking chair, a habit they were starting to build. “had just started courses to become a pilot, and he could not take care of her. When Mia died, Connor was the one to ask me to take care of his sister while he got his stuff sorted through. She’s now studying abroad, been doing so for a few years now.”  
  
“That’s... rough.” It’s all Leah’s able to say. Mary nods.  
  
“Losing your best friend is something that I’d not wish on anyone.” Mary contemplates. Leah thinks of Emily, and her heart aches.  
  
_It’s not the same thing, you are just a rejected freak_ , her mind tells her.   
  
“I much more prefer the feeling of gaining friends than losing them.” Mary manages a weak laugh. “Don’t you agree, Leah?”  
  
That was the exact kind of prompt Leah should expect from a teacher, and yet, it left her completely unprepared. She stared at her nails for a moment.  
  
“I’m not really good at making friends.” Her voice is a whisper, her feet tapping against the floor filling the room with a constant wave of noise.   
  
Mary's brows furrow together.  
  
“I could never imagine that.” She’s surprised. “I can’t really see why.”  
  
“I... You really don’t want to know.” She sighs.  
  
“I’d love to hear about it if you want to talk about it.”   
  
Mary is disarming, too disarming, too kind, and it rigs up all sorts of alarms on her brain. Leah has to take a deep breath and remind herself that Mary was just a woman that traded letters with a lot of people, her former English teacher, who still remembered her assignments.   
  
Still, it was hard to think that she was not going to suffer sabotage for every word that came out of her mouth.  
  
“It’s difficult.” It’s hard to admit. Leah raises her eyes to see Mary nodding in agreement.  
  
“I always found it hard to speak about some things out loud. That’s why you’ll see I have my close friends in words, not phone calls.” A pause. “Is it difficult to say, or is it difficult to think?”   
  
The question puzzles Leah.  
  
“What’s the difference?”  
  
“For instance, I don’t have a problem thinking about the circumstances that brought me to live here, where I am, now. And if someone mentions those circumstances, I will be able to nod or politely get out of the situation. However, I won’t voluntarily extend the topic or bring it up, because to formulate the things that happened are hard. I’m really glad, for instance, that you never asked, but not because I don’t trust you with it or anything. I could tell what happened in full detail on a letter, and have done so, but to hear myself out loud... It’s a different emotion. Do you get what I mean?”  
  
Leah finds herself truly understanding.  
  
“I...” She tries to find the words. “I’m not good at making friends, or keeping them. Something always happens, and I think that created a grudge on me of some sort. People know best than to try, now.” She’s surprised at how the words flew out of her, and how, even though she tried to not sound completely depressing, her sentences were coated with sharp edges.  
Mary acquiesces.   
  
“I’m sorry you went through those experiences.” She offers.   
  
“Thanks. I’m also sorry for... whatever happened to you. You can also talk to me about it if you ever want to.” Leah takes a moment before adding the last sentence.  
  
“Thank you, but I don’t really know where to start.”   
  
Mary looks away, to the window that’s always closed on her dorm (so the pictures don’t fly away, she told Leah on her second week of visiting), and silence has a few minutes to set in before her voice is heard again. “Leah?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“What do you want in life? What do you want to do, truly?”  
  
_I want those moments where I’m the only one shifted and I can be all I am with no repercussions._  
  
“Freedom.” She says, instead, and it’s just as true.

*

That late afternoon, Leah warns her mom she’s not going back home with her.   
  
Instead, she moves away, towards the beaches, taking another walk, one that does not end by the rocks. She keeps following alongside until she gets to the woods.   
  
Surrounding her are the sounds of life, the footprints of all sorts of animals that lived inside those woods. She can picture deer stalking around, so light, with no issues to drag them down.  
  
_And now you’re envious of irrational animals. New rock bottom._  
  
Leah focuses on other things outside her thoughts, transforming her mind in a recollection of her surroundings and not on her actual thoughts as she walks by. It takes more minutes to find a good spot to put her clothes around.  
  
And then, she shifts.  
  
Because she was doing it less, Leah had had no issue letting her hair grow, and it impacted on her wolf form. Not that it bothered her, when it was Sam that insisted they should be trimmed.  
  
_Like dogs._ Jacob grumbles inside her mind, in a sour mood that was similar to her own.  
  
Not identical, however. There’s always an edge of joy on his words, now.   
  
She tries not to hold him against it, and he tries to not point it out, which is harder to do when it’s happening inside your mind.  
  
_How are you, Leah?_  
  
She’s running, taking the edge off. Thinking about what freedom must feel like. To just run away, with a mind that was only her own.  
_  
Not a good time, huh?_ He insists.  
_  
As good as any._ She makes sure to keep herself in the depths of the forest as she runs. _How are you?_ She asks, more out of kindness than anything else, knowing what she will get.  
  
He knows that she knows and yet, he can’t avoid it. Her mind gets flooded with memories of the Cullen’s. Their home, their scent, their voices everywhere.  
  
Most of all, it’s filled with the kid. With smiles of her and visions, she created on Jacob’s mind.  
  
Once more it churns her stomach, for more reasons than one.  
_  
I could not be better._  
_  
Good to know your baby sitter job has insurance._ She jokes, sour, but his laugh echoes inside her mind.   
_  
Leah, when you think about running away... I was in your place once. I know how that feels._  
  
She wished he was closer now so she would slap him in the face.  
_  
You don’t fucking know anything, Jacob. You found your little Resume,_ messing around with his imprinting name was a long going joke, one that she knew Jacob felt bad at laughing, but was the only thing she could think to not sound as bitter by the end of her phrase. _And you did run away. For a while._  
  
She watches brief memories of foreign woods, but not even those last. The images of the half-human creature leeches on everything else, demanding to be noticed even when she isn’t physically around.  
_  
I’m well aware of your opinions on Imprinting, Leah. We all were. I’m sorry to break it to you, but it’s the sort of thing you only truly understand when happens to you, even when you share your head with someone who already is on it._  
  
The undertones are clear enough for her, but not even one _why aren’t you over it yet_ hurts as bad as that fake sense of empathy on his voice.  
_  
I’m not faking shit, Leah._ He mentally sighs. _I’m going now, but... You can talk to me._  
_  
No shit._   
  
Then he’s gone, and for a while, she’s alone. The feeling is a two-edged knife, twisting around her heart. Good side: no one can see her pain. Bad side: her pain is still there, nonetheless, unswayable, a constant token for dying affections and crippling hopes.   
  
Focusing on the present makes it less worse. With her sharped senses, a little less bad than that, but it never truly left her, never truly stops aching on the back of her mind.   
  
Those who had seen inside her head didn’t want to be there.  
  
Most of the time, she didn’t want, either.   
  
Solitude doesn’t last.  
_  
Leah? Mom’s calling you for dinner._  
  
She doesn’t run away.


	3. Meet Connor

The topic reappears a week later, in between another questioning of stranger's lives based on pictures and mentions of postcards.

“What’s freedom for you?” Mary has this habit, Leah’s aware, of jumping in between topics based on little connections inside her mind. Sometimes, she’s even able to understand some of the ropes that move her from one point to another, which happens at that moment.  
  
She shrugs, not because she doesn’t care, but because it’s difficult to say out loud, to argue her point.  
  
“I think freedom is,...” she buys herself time with the introduction like a student filling in lines of the answer with half of the question, her eyes drifting into the pictures again. “to escape everything when it doesn’t feel like escaping. I think people that are free don’t realize that they are, and those who aren't, feel it all the time.”  
  
Mary’s eyes cloud themselves for a moment, as she takes in Leah’s words. The young adult is scared she didn’t make any sense, but when she’s about to start over explaining herself, the older one speaks:  
  
“Would you like to fly?”   
  
Leah’s started to get used to her use of metaphor, as well, so it’s quicker to answer:  
  
“Only if I’m the one learning how to do it.” Sometimes she wondered how it would have been if instead of a wolf she was an eagle. To see everything from above.  
  
It would not feel like freedom, though, not when there would still be intruder thoughts chirping in.  
  
“Well, we could arrange that.” The practicality of her answer throws Leah back.  
  
“It wasn’t a figure of speech?”  
  
Mary sees the confusion and lets out a small chuckle, tapping her fingers against the side of the bed.  
  
“Not in this case, Leah. You just got me thinking.”  
  
In this case, she had not seen the jump.  
  
“Care to explain?”  
  
“I don’t know how to build this kind of freedom you talk about.” She starts. “I know I’ve felt it myself, once, more frequently than I do now, which doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. So I started to wonder about more frequent, palpable, concepts of freedom. And the image that popped in my head was of Connor,” she points at the respective picture, of the redhead with his thumbs up in front of the plane. “the day he finally got approved as a private teacher, flying over our heads. Which made me wonder if you’d ever like to feel like that.”  
  
“It does sound nice,” Leah admits, after a moment of consideration.   
  
“I mean literally, Leah,” Mary emphasizes. “You’re hanging out too much with a Literature Teacher.”  
  
Leah laughs, but now starts to think about it in more concrete terms.  
  
“I guess I never thought about it literally. For starters, I don’t think my family would be able to afford it.”  
  
“I could speak with Connor.” Mary offers, and Leah cringes.  
  
“I don’t...” She starts, but doesn’t know how to finish.  
  
Her former teacher does.  
  
“You don’t want pity or money.” Leah nods in agreement. “I get that, and I’m not offering you any. You’re a good kid, Leah, and I like to help the good ones.” A pause. “Connor would have taught me. We had everything planned out, the whole schedule, and then an asshole decided to shoot me in the spine.” She points at her legs, and Leah tries to not show a reaction at the revelation, but it makes too much sense.  
  
 _A teacher in America, after all._  
  
“He would not mind if I set you up. If you’d like. If you don’t, I’ll drop this and we never mention it again.”  
  
“Why?” Leah can’t help but ask.  
  
“Think of it as a curiosity,” Mary says, finally. “So, if I was able to figure this out for you, would you do it?”  
  
Leah doesn’t know if she would like flying, but she knows at worst she would simply not like, and at best she would have a new distraction, or at least a new excuse to not shift for a while.  
  
“Yeah.” She starts to imagine how it must be to see the world from above somewhere else than in pictures. “I think I would.”

*

The first female werewolf does not tell her family about the possibility of moving across the state to learn how to become a pilot immediately.   
  
She does not tell them that first night, the first one in so long where it isn’t just a blur of sadness, which seems almost like a sign in the right direction.  
  
Nor does she tell them the first time she speaks with Connor Mendez, on Mary’s phone, and he’s talking her through how the course would work, not once mentioning price tags or making passive-aggressive arguments about the lack of one.  
  
She only tells them when everything is set, during dinner, as Seth is shoving half a stake on his mouth and Charlie is drinking a beer and her mom is watching her.  
  
“I’m going to become a pilot.”   
  
The table stops. Seth’s expression is one of confusion, Charlie just as puzzled, but her mom... seems relieved, although curious.  
  
“Did you decide that today, dear?”  
  
“No. Mary has a friend that’s willing to teach me. I thought it sounded like a good idea.” She walks them through the core of the last two weeks, the practical side of how it would work.   
  
“You seem excited.” Sue marvels, in a sigh.   
  
“Can you take care of your--” Charlie starts, but interrupts himself. “Obvious. Sometimes I forget, still, about... the whole wolf thing.”  
  
Seth laughs at that, before turning at Leah, a little more serious.  
  
“Did you talk to Jacob about this?”  
  
“Jacob isn’t my father. I’ll do whatever I want with my life.”  
  
“He’s our alpha.”  
  
“Big pile of shit.” Leah rolls her eyes. Then, a moment later, more recollected. “I won’t talk to him, because I don’t think there’s anything to talk about, because it is my life and my business, but I will still be around and if anything happens, you know you can call me and I will return right away.”  
  
Seth shrugs, nodding, satisfied with her answer.  
  
Dinner goes by without any more disturbances.  
  
The final days before Leah’s trip goes just as fast.   
  
She has a large backpack when she’s going to the resting home one more time before her time to go is up, rushing through the steps to get to Mary’s room.  
  
Instead of a book, there’s a letter on her lap.  
  
“Leah, I’m so glad you could make it!”  
  
“Obviously. I could not have made any of this without you.”  
  
Mary looks sheepishly away, making Leah raise an eyebrow in question.  
  
“I hope you remember all this gratitude in the next few minutes and don’t get too angry at me.”  
  
Concerned, Leah moves across the room, getting close to her former teacher.  
  
“What did you do?” A pause. “Did Connor change his mind?”  
  
Mary's mouth opens in surprise, as she fervently shakes her head in denial.  
  
“No, no, nothing like that.”  
  
“Then it must not be that bad.”  
  
“Keep that in mind.” Mary insists. “When we first met, you told me you didn’t felt like you were good at making friends, and that they often go away. It made me think about my letters. I acted out of impulse and requested one from the pen pal association I’m signed in.” She raises the envelope on her lap, moving it towards Leah. “It sends completely at random, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t feel like it, but it got here this morning, and you’re here, so...”  
  
Leah nods, questions crossing through her mind.  
  
“I’m not really a writer.”  
  
“You don’t need to be. This is about connection before grammar.”  
  
Leah gives out a weak laugh, but grabs the letter, gazing upon it.  
  
It doesn’t look like your usual letter. Or at least, what Leah thinks an envelope would look like. For starters, there’s a dinosaur stamp.   
  
And the seal is made of wax, like something old.  
  
 _How pretentious,_ She thinks.  
  
“You could have said goodbye to me without giving me it, if it arrived this morning.” Leah ponders.  
  
“I could.”  
  
“You could have just suggested it to me instead of asking for a letter.”  
  
“I could, indeed.”  
  
“Then, why?”  
  
Mary presses her lips together.  
  
“I think someone that takes the time to wait for the wax to dry has more patience than the average individual, and I thought that if you ever feel frustrated at your pilot course, it would be nice to have someone like that to rant. No offense.”  
  
“None taken.” That was a new perspective, one that Leah didn’t immediately refuse. She turned her backpack on one shoulder and zipped it open, inserting the letter among folded clothes.   
  
“Thank you.” She says, finally, appreciating the gesture.  
  
“Don’t worry. Can you give me a hug?” Mary asks, and Leah, awkwardly approaches her former teacher, giving her one. “You’ll have to tell me all about it when you come back.” She demands, her tone light. Leah finds herself smiling.  
  
“I will, don’t you worry. Thank you again.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it. Just don’t go too hard on Connor. He’s my kid too, no matter what the papers say.”  
  
“I’ll behave,” Leah promises.   
  
“You better do.”  
  
After the farewells, she calls Charlie, who had offered her to give her a ride. She had told him she could be just as fine in a bus, but he insisted to the point it became weird to deny.  
  
So there she was, spending four hours and a half in a car with her mom’s boyfriend, who was also chief of police, who was also Bella Swan’s dad.  
  
Did that make her and Bella half-siblings? As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Leah decided she hated it and would ignore the thought.  
  
Traveling with Charlie Swan, turns out, isn’t an annoying experience. He didn’t try to make small talk, and wasn’t bothered by when she put her earplugs to listen to music, leaving Leah to her own devices.  
  
To her own thoughts.  
  
Her own pain.  
  
No one really had understood how bad it still hurt. To see the guy she thought was the one marry to a girl she thought would be her best friend, who was her family, after all. How her agony had not meant to be a direct attack on him, even if a sadistic part of her was happy to inflict any sort of pain in him, even if that was not enough to change how things were.   
  
So it lashed out on her insides, a scavenger going after any piece of her heart that wasn’t already demolished after all these years. It lashed out with her own pain and her own flaws and the pain that came from those flaws and the flaws that came from her pain until everything blurred together in just one thing.  
  
Leah herself.  
  
She was almost glad when Charlie spoke to her.  
  
“Leah? I don’t know if that’s rude or something...”  
  
“It’s a wolf question?” She asked. He grumbled an yes. “Go for it.”   
  
“How fast would you get there if it was like that?”  
  
“A lot faster than a car.” She didn’t need to think. “But it would be too risky, and it’s not exactly easy to carry your stuff around without hands.”  
  
“I see.” When he laughs it’s just a puff, enough to tremble his mustache, and it doesn’t last long. His eyes return to the road, but there is something in them.  
  
Leah doesn’t feel like she’s close enough to him to ask what it is, and the conversation dies there.  
  
Time ate itself away to make room for more, and the remaining of the journey happens with no major disturbances. They follow the highway for the most part, but there is a shift when it turns into neighborhoods, then another shift as they get into farms.   
  
They arrive at the address. The farmhouse is a classical one, wood painted in white, two stores high. Around it, there’s the massive grounds, acres, from what Connor had told Leah.  
  
And in front of it was the guy himself.  
  
He stood up like one of those tube men in gas stations do, lanky and pale. His smile was the same as in the picture, and his plaid shirt was also similar, if not the exact same model. From that photo to that moment it seemed to not have a day in between.  
  
“Leah!” He jogs towards the road, giving a look inside the car. “And you must be...?”  
  
“Charlie Swan, Forks chief of police.” Leah recognizes the protective, parental edge of his voice and she warms up a bit with that, even if it’s completely unnecessary. Connor's smile doesn’t falter as he reaches through the window to shake his hand after Leah gets out of the car.  
  
“Good to know you.”  
  
“You better not let her fall from one of those things,” Charlie advises. Leah lets out a nervous chuckle.  
  
“It’s more likely to suffer from road accidents than on planes.” His voice is calm, instructional, as if he had said that many times before. “That being said, want a coffee before you go back?”  
  
Charlie looks at Leah for a moment, and she thinks once more that if she knew him better, that look would probably carry a message, but she had never made the effort and now it would be six months before she would live around him again, if that.  
  
“I think I will take it. Tell me, Kale, where can I park?”  
  
“Connor,” he corrects, without missing a beat, “and there.” He points at a direction. “Anywhere around there is good.”  
  
The three of them drink a cup of coffee together. Charlie also asks to use the bathroom. Then he says goodbye to Leah and there she is, away from the Res.  
  
It will be the first time she’s going to spend so much time out.  
  
“Good to finally see you in person,” Connor says after Charlie leaves. His easy attitude does not affect her, but keeps as a reminder to not push the guy over the edge.  
  
 _He’s doing you a favor._  
  
“You seem healthy, but tomorrow we have to go through some check-ups before I can legally teach you anything.” He continues.  
  
“Like?”  
  
“Your sight, mostly. Are you aware of being colorblind?”  
  
“I don’t think so.”  
  
“Then this will be easy.”


	4. Leah writes

Connor’s place is old in its decoration, even with all the modern facilities he added along the years he lived there. The sink has warm water, the stove is one of those electric, nice ones, but in the living room, there is a thick maroon carpet and an old radio, for instance. He gives her a tour of the house. On the first floor, there is a laundry area, the kitchen, an office, and a backyard entrance that has a small balcony kind of area.   
  
The second floor has three rooms, two of them being suites, and it’s one of those Connor offers Leah.   
  
“I set those exams for you tomorrow, and then we are going straight into theory lessons.” He explains, watching as she puts her things down on the bed. “If we are lucky, you might be able to watch the classes of a few other clients I have.”  
  
“I might?” She inquires.  
  
He snorts.  
  
“Learning how to pilot is a very individual experience. Some standard courses sell three-month programs, but from my personal experience I’ve noticed that people can take up to six months to learn, so I never really promise a schedule until I see what everyone is able to do.”  
  
“That’s a very Mary thing to say.” Leah notices, and she sees him agreeing.  
  
“She must have said something similar to me then.” He pauses. “Thank you for visiting her. It’s difficult to do that, with the classes and all, but it really means a lot. I know she really likes you.”  
  
“She’s great.” Leah nods. “It was no trouble at all. Thank you for accepting doing this.”   
  
He shakes his head, dismissing it.  
  
“Thank me when you are flying. In fact, wanna see one our bad boy?” He winks at her, more out of humor than anything. She shrugs.  
  
“Lead the way.”  
  
He takes her to the backyard, where it is completely adapted for classes, with a landing zone followed by a reasonable garage. That’s where he goes, Leah walking by his side. Connor opens the storage area with a push of a button, and reveals the same plane that was in the picture.  
  
“This is the Skyhawk.” He introduces her to it, and the sound of its name seems like a piece falling into place. “More precisely a Cessna 172, but you have no reason to care about that now.”  
  
“Is it hard to learn?”  
  
He puts his hands in his pockets, looking at the aircraft.  
  
“There are a few models that are more recommended for training in comparison to this one, but this guy can actually be functional around the same price, which is why I got it. But no, once you figure this one out you won’t have any problems figuring how any of them work.”  
  
“Good.” She stares at it and wonders how it must be like to be inside that thing on the skies, cutting across the clouds. She wonders if it's similar to being a wolf, dashing through the trees.   
  
“I actually have no idea how much is one of those.” Her confession is made almost accidentally.  
  
Connor shakes his head, letting out a laugh.  
  
“You have a lot to learn.”  
  
“Never hid that.”  
  
He looks at her and smiles. She recalls that first moment, less than an hour prior, where she looked at him and realized she had felt disappointed for not feeling anything.  
  
 _The fact that you still somehow keep hoping that you aren’t broken is a testimony of how fucked up you really are._  
  
But no, nothing. And she had been so used to that specific disappointment it was easy to shake out of it.  
  
“Yeah, you were very clear about your lack of experience over the phone.” He agrees. “Which is not really a problem. I can add that to my resume.” He jokes. She thinks about the little Loch Ness monster Jacob is completely head over heels for, and when she gives a short laugh is not for his attempt at humor, but her own association.   
  
After that, Connor doesn’t hang around, explaining to her that he has some paperwork to go through.  
  
“Feel free to look around, though. If you need me I’ll be in my office.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
She stares at the plane for a while before dragging herself out, slowly making her way back to the house. Once inside she fetches some water, knowing that she’s gotta get used to existing in someone else’s home for the next months.   
  
Being there solidified her choice. She still felt a little bit out of everything, not really believing she not only had made a choice, but one with the potential to change her whole life positively.   
  
Leah washes the glass after using it, letting it to dry, then walks to the room she would be staying in. It has the same kind of decor, with a heavy carpet and just as heavy duvets on the bed, two bedside nightstands, the right one having a gray, standard cd radio on it, the left one having an empty frame. She goes through the drawers on both of them just to see what’s inside.   
  
There is an air freshener package in one of the drawers, a few coins in another. She goes through the drawer by the door, a larger one, meant to work as a closet, and goes through the same process. Once more, there is nothing of substance there, but Leah makes sure everything is empty before she opens her backpack to move her own things inside.  
  
As she moves the first fold of clothing, the letter Mary gave her jumps out. Leah sits down by the floor, resting her back against the side of the bed, and looks at the envelope.  
  
The wax seal is white, engraved with something that could be a flower. On the back, there is the dinosaur stamp. The address is brief, probably something in regards of the pen pal agency, she presumes, but it is still informative in the sense to tell Leah that the person who wrote this letter is called Camille F. Haleen.  
  
Leah breaks the wax, the sound of it cracking reminding her of how the bonfires cackle on summer nights back in La Push.  
  
Inside, there are pages of folded paper, on a round, large letter. She starts reading.

_“Hello, stranger._

_The first time I wrote a letter for the PenPal program my name was Linda, and I was a 45-year-old woman having a middle life crisis. I spoke in-depth about my husband, Gregory, and his love for golf. I even went through the effort of making up family stories, how our youngest, Keithlying, was great at basketball._   
  
_I don’t know if Linda sounded like a real suburban mom, and it will remain a mystery, because she wasn’t answered._   
  
_The second time it wasn’t voluntarily that I kept the creative writing skit, but for college. I’m graduating in History, and as an exercise one of our professors instructed us to write from the point of view of one of our ancestors. Admittedly, it was not that hard, as my family has kept a really close record for a really long time, going as far as the 1600, starting in the UK for just two generations, then over the ocean. Unfortunately, my letter fell upon the lap of a conservative old man, and he was really unhappy with the perspective I provided him._   
  
_This time, this isn’t an exercise, just a scream at the universe, I guess._   
  
_Hi. I’m Camille. Truly, Camille. You might already know that if you read the back of the envelope, or you might have chosen to keep that as a surprise and discover through reading. I live in Halifax, close to the countryside. We have the most beautiful walks here, and it’s really easy to get in touch with nature, which I really appreciate. How’s the world that surrounds you,_   
_stranger? Do you live by the ocean, or in a stone forest? Or both? Or none?_   
  
_First letters are meant as an introduction and less of a questionnaire, but please see everything that I say with an implicit series of questions, such as “what do you think about this topic?”, or “how does that compare to you?”, please. I don’t care if you disagree with me in anything, as long as you explain why you do so._   
  
_Disclaimer given, let us return to the introduction side of the matter._   
  
_In all honesty, I could spend hours writing about myself, but I’m not going to, nor do I really feel like doing it. It’s for a reason that my area of studies focuses on other people's lives and their surroundings and the things that happened to those that came before us. It’s probably from a similar branch that comes to my facility to pretending I’m other people._   
  
_(I’m really Camille, though. You have to believe me, I would not be so vague if I wasn’t.)_   
  
_Truth is, I’m sad. Are you sad? (I know I told you I would allow the questions to be implicit, but until I know how much you are willing to talk without explicit questions I have an excuse to let them slip.) Because I am. It took me a long time to see that I was sad, because it kept being confused in my brain as a phase, or as feeling lost, or confused, or uncertain, but all of these things are rooted, in my experience, in sadness._   
  
_And it’s weird to explain when you are sad. It’s weird when you don’t feel like you can actually explain why you are sad to people._   
  
_It’s not that weird, I suppose, if you have a material reason. People talk all the time about sadness when it comes from a loss or a tragedy, as they should. These things should not be bottled up._   
  
_My case here is more about a lack of feeling. A therapist would probably call it depression, but I can’t attend therapy for reasons, so I do the second best thing, ranting to a complete stranger in a letter that may never be written. I could just as well bottle this and throw it in the ocean, but pollution doesn’t need any help from me._   
  
_And it’s not that I don’t get happy, or satisfied, in my surroundings. My life is really good, I have a closer family than most, I engage in hobbies and that sort of thing._   
  
_I guess this happened because there was a time in my life I needed this sort of shield, and I am aware of that. I’m thankful that I was able to block things out because I really needed that capacity. Now, however, I don’t, but this is stuck in my mind. This black hole. So I’m telling it to someone, in hopes that either by sharing or just by articulating, I can figure out my life._   
  
_I promise I’m not always such a downer. I can be quite cheery, and often am, but today I’m not feeling it, and I don’t see why pretend I am. I’d rather be ignored for my sincerity than praised for my lies._   
  
_Not that Linda was really praised, but however._   
  
_Thank you for stopping by and reading._   
  
_I hope to hear from you soon, stranger._

_Sincerely,_

_Camille.”_

The letter ends with the date it was written, it being a few months ago. Camille’s calligraphy is easy to read, like a font. It smells sweet, with the faint smell of perfume.   
  
It speaks of things Leah can understand, for the most part. About not wanting to pretend, for instance.  
  
She could appreciate that.  
  
Knowing she had the remaining of the day to herself, it was a better timing to open that than she would have in the next months, if she were to answer.  
  
Leah realizes with a pang of surprise that she wants to.   
  
She unzips the front pocket of her backpack, where she keeps a small notepad, and pushes her hand on that same pocket in search of her lost pen. When she finds it, she opens the notepad on the first pad, resting it against her knees.  
  
The blank page staring back at her is terrifying.   
  
“This is about connection before grammar,” Leah repeats the words Mary had told her, and eases her mind, deciding to write just like she would speak, deciding to follow the first letter structure when it came to the topics.

“ _Hello, Camille. I’m Leah._  
  
 _I’ve never written a letter to anyone. Never felt the need to. Yours crossed my path completely by accident. I wasn’t even aware that was the name of the pen pal thing. But a person I know that is really engaged in this process thought it would be a good idea if I tried, so she made a sort of request, I don’t really know the details, and your letter is now with me._  
  
 _I hope I’m doing this right. That at least I’m talking to a real person, and not a character of some sort._  
  
 _(I believe you are real, by the way. I hope you are. ~~It would be pathetic to admit I believe in you if this was some sort of elaborate prank.~~ )_  
  
 _Conservative men usually have a lot of thoughts when I’m around, too. I can imagine the kind of shit you heard, even if not directed at you, personally._  
  
 _My family has kept a good ancestry record, but not that far. We always lived in the same region in the Olympic Peninsula, and it’s very rare for us to actually go and live somewhere else, but_  
 _I’ve been starting to question how that must be like._  
  
 _By the way, the thing you said about just answering random stuff, feel free to do it as well. I realized I’m not that good at writing letters yet._  
  
 _I’ve never been to Halifax, but it sounds like here, from what you said. We have great hiking places and beautiful beaches and huge forests. A bit of everything._  
  
 _Honestly, I didn’t think that I would end up answering your letter. I didn’t even have the best first impression of it, which now I feel kinda bad about._  
  
 _Then I read it._  
  
 _And I understood your words. I truly did. If you are screaming to the universe I hope you don’t mind if I stand along and scream with you. I’m one of those people that had something happen to them, once, and it has never truly left me, the kind of sadness that is so full of everything else that I have to hold myself from keeping it from gnawing at my insides. I admit this does not make me the best person around._  
  
 _I read your letter months after you send it, as you’ll see by the dates. Are you better? Did you figured your sadness now, or what to do with it?_  
  
 _I guess the purpose of letters is to talk about ourselves so we can talk about other people. There isn’t much how to talk about the weather around here. So talk all you want. Let’s known each other. ~~If you end up answering this one, after all.~~_  
  
 _I hope that you are better in regards to your sadness, so that’s why I’m not going to ask you much about it because I would hate to open any wounds. I hope you don’t mind if I talk about my own._  
  
 _It is the kind that is less weird, as you said in your letter, but it did not make it easier by any means. I ~~fucking~~ hate my kind of sadness. It is bitter and sour and has kept me company when nothing else has had, following me for years. Sometimes I wonder how I would have turned out without it. I don’t envy your kind, the hollow one. I’ve met someone hollowed by sadness once, but she had a reason, so I suppose that’s not exactly your type, tho you said once you felt like you needed that. Why?_  
  
 _(Hers didn’t last that long, and she’s better now, so I guess it doesn’t really matter.)_  
  
 _My sadness makes me angry most of the time._  
  
 _I’ve lost my father a few years ago now, and I used to be very close to him. I’m also really close to my mom, and my younger brother. My stepfather is ok, I don't mind the guy. Do you have a big family?_  
  
 _I don’t have a problem with you being a downer, you sound nice enough as it is. I don’t know if my opinion counts for much on that matter, because sounding angry all the time and never writing letters is not a very good way to get to know people, but you do. You sound very articulate even trying to explain something as confusing as your sadness. Can’t help but wonder what a happy Camille letter would have sounded like._  
  
 _Regardless, I like that you did not put up a front for entertainment's sake. It was good to read something I could relate to, even if it happened to be something sad._  
  
 _If I come across Linda’s letter, I promise I’ll answer it in character._  
  
 _I hope this isn’t too late to write you back._  
  
 _Leah.”_

She folds the pages and puts them in her back pocket, takes her wallet, and stalks down the stairs, going to Connor’s office and knocking on the door.  
  
“How can I help you, Leah?” He looks up from his notebook, blinking a few times.  
  
“Where’s the closest post office?”  
  
“It’s not that close.” He apologizes. “But I can take you there tomorrow morning, seeing that we will do your appointments anyway.”  
  
Leah moves her head negatively, wanting to do that already. Knowing herself, that urge only comes out of the fact that she would likely forget to send it and don’t want to go through that.   
  
If she was Camille, she would be tired of waiting two months for a letter and would want the person on the other side to keep their side of the bargain.  
  
“I don’t mind walking.” She tells him, trying to not sound snappy. He doesn’t look offended, so she thinks she managed it.  
  
“If that’s the case...” He gives her the directions, emphasizing the half an hour journey the farm is from the city.  
  
She’s out in a moment after that, jogging her way through the postal office. Leah really isn’t bothered by taking walks. It was better for her brain than to stay put on that house, without nothing to do until the next day.   
  
The sun is setting by the time she gets to her destination, and she is quick to buy the necessary amount of stamps and an envelope, passing both addresses from her phone, where she had typed them out, to the blank page.   
  
Her handwriting looks like chicken scratch, but she won’t let that stop her. Someone that could speak to strangers about _stuff_ could be able to read that out, right?

After checking for the third time that she filled everything correctly, she delivers it.  
  
“How long until it gets there?” She asks the attendant. He gives a brief look at the envelope.  
  
“At least two weeks, miss, a little less if you're lucky.”  
  
Then she’s gone, at a quick pace back to the farm.


	5. Bonds

Turns out, no one thought that Leah was colorblind, and indeed, she was not. All other physical tests went just as perfectly, with the exception of the concerning fever she seemed to be presenting, which made the local doctor stare at her in disbelief.  
  
“I have a condition.” She blurted out.  
  
_I’m not going to let being a wolf stop me from doing whatever the fuck I want._ She thought, even if she had no idea how to avoid that from happening.  
  
“Can your GP attest to that?”  
  
Leah thinks about how she does not have a GP, never needed one, and didn’t even know a doctor.  
  
With one exception.  
  
In her mind, she grumbles in to complain, knowing what she will have to do, swallowing her pride at the idea of asking Jacob for a favor.  
  
It had been a bad idea to not ask Esme’s number. She was the only tolerable vampire she had ever known, after all, and it seemed easier to ask directly to her than him.  
  
Yet, it had to be done.  
  
Her expression sours immediately, and she knows she would not be able to hide it even if she tried.  
  
“Excuse me, I’ll make a quick call.”  
  
She leaves the GP office. Connor is in the waiting room, tilting his head in confusion as he looks at her. She reassures him with a thumbs up and points to her phone, going out so to make sure no one would hear her. Reassured, he sits back on the chair.  
  
Leah goes to the far corner of the parking lot, then calls Jacob.  
  
“Leah?” His voice is one of confusion. “Did something happen?” There are voices in the background, and Leah does her best to tune them out.   
  
“I need a favor.” The words struggle to get out. Jacob laughs.  
  
“Oh, so now you remember me? After you moved across the country?”  
  
“I’m not that far, Jacob. Are you going to help me?”  
  
“Relax, Leah, I’m just teasing you. What’s up?”  
  
“I went to a doctor, and he thinks I’m going to die out of fever. I need to convince him I’m not, and while on it, make sure that he will not want a blood test.”  
  
“Oh, so you need Carlisle's help. Lucky for you he’s off duty today.” There’s a small pause, and then a soft thud in the background. “Yeah, it’s Leah. She needs to convince a doctor she’s not dying from fever.” He talks to someone outside the line. “It’s Carlisle, he wants to talk to you.”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Hello, Leah. How are you doing?”  
  
“I’m fine.” She has nothing against the doctor, still remembering how he had helped fix Jacob together after the newborn battle, and, supposedly, had never fed on a human. Leah thinks that if every vampire was like the guy she would mind them much less. “Jacob told you?”  
  
“He did. Are you close to the doctor?”  
  
“I’m in front of the clinic. Said I had to make a call.”  
  
“Good, good. If you give me your consent, I can lie to you on your behalf, and then later, we can figure out how to make it into documents.”  
  
“Thank you, really.”  
  
“It’s nothing.” He assures her.   
  
She rushes back in and hands her phone to the local doctor, who makes all sorts of faces and expressions. First, Carlisle introduces himself, and there’s a lot of _oh, I read article Bla-bla-bla_ sort of stuff. Then Carlisle probably started saying all kinds of statements with medical turns, because the doctor nods knowingly. He throws Leah a pity glance, and she feels the urge to punch him in the face, but it doesn’t last as long as it would. Because no matter what he pitied her for, it was a lie, because that doctor would never know he was in front of a shape shifter. The call ends quickly, and her phone is returned.  
  
“Doctor Cullen made me aware of your situation. As it does not affect anything regarding physical activity, I can approve of you.” Simple as that, as if under a spell, she leaves the office with a green light. Connor asks her on her way back to the farm what had happened, and she fills him in on the fact that she has some medical issues.  
  
“I would never have guessed.” He looks her up and down for a moment, which Leah pretends to not notice. “Your tattoo is really nice.” He compliments, maintaining his gaze on her shoulder for a few more moments before returning to look at the traffic. “Does it mean something?”  
  
“No, I just find it cool.” She says, which she thinks would be something that she would do if she ever actually made a tattoo.  
  
Perhaps she should. It would probably last far less than the price she was paying for, considering her healing properties, but it didn’t mean it could not be fun.  
  
Perhaps.  
  
“Now, if you are not too tired after going to the doc,” he starts, ironically, “you can grab some writing materials and follow me to the hawk. ‘K?”  
  
They go inside the plane for the first time. Even with it not moving there was still something impressive about being inside a vehicle that was so huge.   
  
He started to go through the controls and overall visualization of the cabin and Leah realized she understood pretty quickly what was being introduced, grasping the concepts as soon as they were introduced to her. She would still want to make sure she knew which was which, but it didn’t seem too different from the process of learning a car had been for her. She writes the essentials, the names, and then draw shapes for the spaces they're represented in front of her.  
  
“Ok, so that’s the six-pack. Do you think you got it?” She nods, confidently. “Can you go tell me which is which?”  
  
“Just the six-pack?” She confirms, ignoring things like the whole far left, that was dedicated to fuel, as far as she had understood from that get-go. He nods, and Leah is quick to name them. “Airspeed, Attitude, Altimeter,...” she sees him nodding in agreement. “Vertical Speed, Heading and Turn.”  
  
“Congrats. It seems you have some sort of photographic memory?”  
  
She shrugs.  
  
“I wouldn’t know.”  
  
“Are you good to remember things once you assign some sort of mental image to them?”  
  
Leah thinks back on Mary’s room, and how she could connect the faces with the names in a moment.  
  
“Maybe.”  
  
“In that case, this helps move on faster on this process.”  
  
He goes through the whole controller panel a few more times, starting to describe each of their functions and meanings, sometimes anticipating future lessons. Connor is a thorough teacher, going through each section one extra time after he’s sure Leah understands, and although this is a little slow for Leah’s taste, she can understand the sentiment. Perhaps because it gives her time to write down everything he is saying about each sector.  
  
By the end of the day the cockpit is not finished, but Leah knows far more than she thought she would.  
  
And Connor too, apparently.  
  
They leave the storage and go back inside the house. It’s nighttime. Connor starts to fix them dinner, ignoring how Leah is going through the names and functions in whispers, trying to keep it all in her head.  
  
“Earth to Leah.” he jokes, then set the two plates. It’s a quick meal, salad, and patties, and Leah makes a quick note to make something actually decent to pay for her stay there. “By the way, I have a client tomorrow,” he gets up, leaving the half-eaten plate by itself, raising his tone as he walks towards his office. “and he’s far ahead, so I can’t put you two together, but it’s only during the mornings, and in the afternoon we can keep up from where we stopped.” She listens to the sounds of papers and objects being moved around until he exclaims a wordless sound and returns, holding a manual. “If you want, you can go through this in the morning. It’s the manual.”  
  
“Sure, thanks.”

*

On the second day, Leah reads almost a third of the manual, paying close attention, writing everything she thinks is relevant about the contents.   
It’s not her favorite thing to do. She would rather be on the plane, seeing things, touching them, figuring them out through experience, but she supposed it was easier doing that with a bike than with a plane, where the fall was much smaller.   
  
So studying it is.   
  
She goes by the kitchen to take a break, and see’s through the window Connor teaching another guy. Her attention returns to the situation in front of her and she makes a mental list of stuff to buy to cook actual, fulfilling, meals.   
  
During the afternoon, they go through the six-pack again, then start going to the remaining of the panel and the controls on the right side. He’s able to barely introduce them, because when he starts going through the details it’s harder than it looks, with very intricate details.  
  
Connor stops explaining when the words “audio control” stops making sense altogether.   
  
On the third day, they go to the supermarket. Leah has money for that, savings from the job prior to her father’s passing. With everything that happened after she just had not got another, but she wasn’t one to go around spending, and considering she wasn’t paying bills, she had more than enough to help with food, even by werewolf meal standards.  
  
Classes that day do not happen in front of the plane, but in the kitchen, and as Leah chops ingredients she listens about the fundamentals of the second panel.   
  
“After we go through everything in the cockpit for the first time I’ll make some quizzes with you,” he explains later, when they are having lunch break “and as soon as you ace them we will start flight simulator.”  
  
“What’s that?” She asks, in between bites.  
  
“It’s just like they have when you take your driver's license, but air version.”  
  
She nods, shoving more food inside her mouth to hide her pain.   
  
Did it show on her face, her pain? Did it spilled across her cheeks, pulled her skin out at weird angles, the way she felt it did on her insides?  
  
It had been Sam who had taught her how to drive. She remembered more of the way his lips moved than the actual words that went out of them, how much he liked her back then, how much she liked him. How he would sneak her out of class under the pretense of those lessons and how they always ended in the backseat.  
  
Whenever something triggered the good times it stung. Her mind was always running a few good ones in awful lights, purposefully hurting her, showing her the things she would never have again due to her flaws, going over and over how broken she is, but it brought up out of the blue was a different kind of ache.   
  
Still, she pretends she knows what he’s talking about. Pretending she didn’t almost ruin her father’s car trying to learn how to drive, always looking away at him.   
  
_Memories of love are all that is left for me._  
  
“And as soon as I get good at that, we will go inside the actual plane?”  
  
“There are a few more steps in between, but that’s the skeleton of it.” He nods.  
  
On the fourth day of lessons, they are sitting down in the living room. Connor is sprained on the couch, she takes the smaller one.  
  
“And then there’s Loran, which stands for Long Range Navigation System. It’s the GPS of your aircraft, the place with all those funny info you hear being thrown around in movies and that sort of stuff.” She writes it down, with the exception of the last part, complementing notes she already had from the manual. “Alongside Loran, it also uses satellites to figure out your location.” He nods as he watches her writing. “What made you want to learn this? Don’t take me wrong, having a dedicated student is the opposite of a problem when it's someone with no background.”  
  
“Mary suggested it.” Leah shrugs. “I had never considered the idea, but now I guess it just makes sense. What made you want to do this?”  
  
Connor adjusts himself on the couch, thinking.  
  
“I was the kid always playing around with airplane toys, very cliche, I know.” He snorts. “My dad was in the military and he would take all of us, mom, Clari, and me, to the history museums or tarmacs and they say I would not want to do anything else other than being around the aircraft. Then I started researching and actually studying and I was the top of my class.” He gives an arrogant smile. Leah rolls her eyes, but he’s not offended. “But I wasn’t a jerk about it. Instead, I found my own ways of lecturing the class that made sense and I thought I could focus on that. Then mom died and I went ahead in the whole thing.”  
  
“I see.” It’s all she says.  
  
“What do you think you’ll end up doing?”  
  
It had been less than a week, but Leah had, indeed, started to look out for work options in the area. She had a few ideas in her mind of what she didn’t want to end up doing long term, but knew she might have to face them at some point.  
  
“I don’t know.” It’s a weird thing, to admit that she does not have a fixed idea. It’s even weirder than admitting a wrong idea, because at least then you made some sort of decision. “I like what you have around here, your own plane and stuff, but know it will take me a long time before I can actually afford something like that.”  
  
He nods.  
  
“You don’t need to have a big backyard, you know,” Connor says. “I’m just the exception. Most pilots will save up for a plane and rent a place, even those who take this as a career.” He pauses. “Honestly, I didn’t really think you’d be considering working with this.”  
  
“Didn’t you?” Her voice sounds at the edge of a snap, and it does not go unnoticed. She hated feeling like she was being doubted, or looked down upon.  
  
“Don’t take me wrong.” He raises his palms up for dramatic effects. “I don’t know how to say this without offending you.”  
  
“Then don’t.” She snaps. “Sorry.” Mary's request makes her backtrack. “I will try... not to be offended.”  
  
He laughs.  
  
“You’re tough. You’re really scary, do you know that?” She can help but let out a devilish grin.  
  
“I’m aware. What gave it away?”  
  
“What didn’t?” He points at her. “A strong wind blows me away.” Connor indicates his thin arms with another pointing gesture. “You look like you could kick my ass, and you act as you could.”  
  
“As long as you don’t give me a reason.” She murmurs. “It’s a joke, Connor. Chill, I won't hurt you.” Leah assures him. “Really. Mary asked me to take it easy on you.”  
  
“I really love Mary sometimes, you know that?” He laughs nervously. “Point is, you look like you could be, I don’t know, a personal trainer. A bodyguard.”  
  
“I will take that as a compliment.” She scoffs.   
  
“Another day I’ll live, then.”  
  
Connor smiles at her, lighting his words. Leah shrugs.  
  
That is the first night she thinks she might have made a friend in all of this.  
  
By the end of that week, they have gone through the whole cockpit multiple times, and Leah finished the first reading through the manual, even though she feels like it won’t be the last time she’s opening that. When Connor is lecturing he keeps his tone light and still goes through everything an annoying number of times, and he will rarely sidetrack himself when he’s teaching. Sometimes it will happen, and he will make a side comment about Mary or tease Leah on how he could hire her as a bodyguard to make up for the classes.  
  
Leah still drags her pain around like a second layer of skin, the mark of a burning iron that sticks around her features. Focusing on the lessons work in the same way that running does, making the front of her mind focus on something else and the burning attack only the sides, but it’s still there, lingering like poison, enrapturing her. She discovers that she doesn’t need to be worried about Connor noticing her mood swings as she was. Men that don’t live rent-free inside your head can be really oblivious to those things, she realized with a pang of relief.  
  
Once, when going through the Loran once more, he jokes that “oh, just think of it as an ex stalking you”, and she realizes it’s really for the best he does not notices her anger besides the normal amounts she’s always exhuming.   
  
When the second-week starts, Leah calls her mom. They talk for a while, and Sue seems genuinely happy for her, even if she mentions how much she misses Leah at every opportunity. It makes her feel wanted.  
  
She doesn’t mind.  
  
Tuesday arrives and Connor shows her the simulations for the first time.   
  
There are up and downs, and that day is a failure by all Leah standards. She grows exponentially more frustrated, but her teacher never falters on his patience.  
  
“You are really good with the theory. Your hands will be caught up in practice if you don’t use them to try and punch the simulator and instead just take a breath and try again, Leah.” He pauses at every word that indicates an action, eyes wide open. “I understand you are frustrated, but it isn’t the equipment's fault. This beauty will help you not crash once you are in the air.”  
  
She grumbles, but let out a deep sigh and tries again.  
  
On Wednesday, the mailman comes by. He arrives while Connor is teaching one of his actual clients, and Leah was watching them flying from the living room window. She wanted to be at that level, and soon.  
  
Her thoughts were interrupted by the ring of the bell, and the letter that arrived with the easily recognizable white wax seal.  
  
_Camille._  
  
The name is a soft whisper on her mind.  
  
She thanks the mailman and goes to the living room, tucking herself on the smaller couch and taking a moment to break the seal, then take out the papers, unfolding them carefully and propping the papers against her thighs to read.

  
_“I’ve wondered about that letter I send from time to time, imagining it lost on the wrong pocket of a fired mailman that will never return it._  
_I’m glad I was wrong and that it reached you, Leah. It’s always good to talk to someone who feels like understands us, and that makes you feel understood, as well._  
  
_Your letter had both. I’m glad you decided to write it to me._  
  
_The friend that set you up probably went through a request ordeal, where they take the letters that aren’t really specific. Sometimes people will send letters to specific groups, such as religious entities or survivors of trauma or book clubs, and other times there will be folks like me and you, who are just screaming at the universe and seeing who will listen to your echos first._  
  
_So let’s start shouting, shall we?_  
  
_The fact that you believe I’m a real person is not unfounded. I am a real person. I’m left-handed, and it’s hurting to write because I recently switched notepads and it has spirals on the side I write. At this precise moment, it’s the most real thing I’m feeling, so I hope this random fact about myself is enough to concrete your trust in the fact that I exist._  
  
_Something tells me that if I start to ponder too much about my own existence I will get an identity crisis coming soon._  
  
_(It’s weird to write anything humorous in a letter when we don’t have entonation to actually show it is a joke, but I hope you get a hang of my sarcasm.)_  
  
_I did read a lot of shit from that fucking asshole. (You seemed hesitant to curse. This is my way of telling you this is a free to curse zone, as long as we don’t actually curse each other.) But it is in the past, and I have a much better pen pal now._  
  
_When it comes to how we track our family records, most of it happened through journals and recipe books. The oldest american record we have is from an ancestor that lived in Massachusetts. She was sent to death by hanging, then forgiven when people found out she was pregnant. It resulted in her being exiled, and a few more generations peregrinated across the country in search of a place where we would be welcomed. There are many siblings and cousins and whatnot that we don’t have a record of, but there’s this line from daughters going all the way from that first one that kept the others alive through words. I’m the oldest of three sisters and I’m doing my best to keep things registered as well, to keep the tradition alive. I'm the one writing diaries this time, though I do it digitally. The youngest is Luce, always sticking around my parents, who doesn't really care about the family history. Then there is Saphira, very in between on the whole thing, the middle one, who has suggested me to try and use other mediums, like art, and I really liked the idea, so I’m trying to make time for it among my routine._  
  
_Is your life a busy one, Leah?_  
  
_I took the liberty to research the Olympic Peninsula while reading your letter. I already was aware of the location. Can you believe I was reading through entries from the middle 1800s that happened around that area? It’s such a coincidence. But I had not actually seen it until now, and it’s breathtaking, with the pines and the ocean. A little too gloomy for my taste, but raining is not so bad. Here at the coast is the kind of place where the weather is all around the place, with one morning starting scalding hot and you going to bed on negative degrees (if you use Celsius, that is, but that’s not a very American thing to do). But I don’t mind the unpredictable, I actually prefer it. Sometimes it’s a small surprise of a sunny day or a cloud when it’s too hot to be able to turn my day around and remind myself I can adapt and thrive._

_This sounds like a self-help book, I know. But the small things help in my case._  
  
_What helps in yours?_  
  
_We don’t have a lot of hiking places around here, but yours sound lovely, as far as I’ve seen. I love all sorts of connections with nature, it’s almost an impulse at this point, and to think of going to a place like that is something I’m now putting on my bucket list._  
  
_Now, I really need to know: what was your first impression of my letter? Was it the stamp?_  
  
_I’m really sorry to read that something happened to you. You don’t go too deep into it in your letter, but I read it over and over and every time I did, I thought I could feel it lingering in the words. This is to say that if you ever want to discuss it, or to rant about it, you can. And if you don’t want to, you can tell me why._  
  
_Sometimes going through the opposite road is the way to get where you intended all along._  
  
_Ok, I will try to stop with the self-help tips. I know everyone finds them annoying._  
  
_And if you don’t want to discuss it, could you describe your sadness to me? It’s such a complete opposite to mine that I can’t help but feel really curious about it. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person._  
  
_Which leads me here: thanks for your concern. That same echoing sadness surrounds me. I don’t have a better way to explain than ways that don’t make sense to anyone else, but it’s the kind of sadness that comes to you when there are too many lives inside your own._  
  
_How do you interpret that?_  
  
_When you spoke about your own burden, about the mysterious creature that eats at your insides it was such a vivid image that Saph’s advice came to mind, and I illustrated what I saw. I hope you’re not offended by that, Leah, and if you are, I hope you forgive me. It’s attached to the last page. If I was to describe mine it’s a crowded room, where you can hear every conversation that is going on and it keeps babbling for so, so long that when the shop closes down and everyone goes to bed, it takes you years to realize you’re able to channel it out. I guess I felt like I had to give up my sense of self for a while, in order to cohabit my own self with those presences._  
  
_This makes me sound insane. I would not blame you for thinking that, but this constant metaphor really is the best one I’ve got._  
  
_(For the record, I do not hear imaginary voices.)_  
  
_People put up too much value in being a perfect person and forget to just be someone. I think as long as we know where we want to arrive and make small steps towards it every day, it’s good enough._  
  
_Or perhaps I want to convince myself of that for my own selfish reasons._  
  
_I haven’t figured out my own sadness, but indeed, writing it out did help to be able to put it into words, even when it didn’t come from exterior events. So thank you, Leah, for listening to my pain, and inadvertently helping me with it._  
  
_I don’t mind seeing any wounds you feel like showing. Isn’t that what people do, sharing battle scars? We can do that._  
  
_You asked me how I am when I’m not sad. I’m going to leave here one question before answering yours:_  
  
_How do you think you would have turned out without your pain?_  
  
_If I had written the letter in a better mood, I would have made more openings for conversation. I would have thrown around more open questions, more random trivia. Would have inquired about your favorite color and your favorite movies, what songs you’ve been listening to recently. I would have shared my own rec’s, that sort of thing. Instead, I made a really difficult letter to answer, all things considered, and you answered it anyway._  
  
_Everyone turns out different from the things that happen to them. The same thing could happen with every person and each one reacts in a completely different matter. There’s something beautiful about it, and something extremely frustrating. Sometimes, I admit, I will look at my sisters and know they won’t feel the same pain I do, and I will grieve for myself, and resent them. I always get out of that slump, eventually, but it takes more time sometimes. I was going down that path when you answered me, and it was good, because it made me aware. I don’t mean to push this in front of your own anger. I don’t think anger is a bad thing, even when people keep telling me it is. Anger, like all other things, comes from a place of love, and most of the time, it comes from a place of loving the self. Being angry that something happened to you is one of the most honest ways to stand up for the wrongs you endured. You don’t look like you see things that way, so I wanted to share some light on my perspective. In my perspective, as well, your anger does not belittle you as a person. You sound just as authentic as I tried to be in that first letter._  
  
_Linda’s letter is probably the one that ended up in someone's wrong pocket, I believe. It’s the only way such a well build persona could have been ignored._  
  
_Your letter arrived just at the right time._  
  
_I hope mine gets with you at the same timing._  
  
_I’m eager to know you better. Hope I didn’t scare you off._  
  
_Camille.”_

Leah realizes by the end of the letter that there the reason her eyes are pricking it’s because tears are forming. When she goes to look at the illustration Camille sends in hope of a distraction, she’s startled at how much that does not distract her.  
  
It’s a dark pallet, a barely lit setting. There are prison bars, and the weak light reflects in places where it has been churned off, wreaked in all sorts of directions like thorns. There is a rose-toned red, but it’s behind the distorted bars, dripping from the snarling mouth of a gray wolf.  
  
_You used a very loose language. It’s impossible for her to know._ She tries to rationalize it, going up to the room she was occupying, not wanting to risk being seen in such a state of shock.

 _How?_  
  
Leah lays down on the bed. Her eyes go through the most emotionally intense paragraphs, those were when Camille spoke of her she could only see herself in her words, even the ones where she did not want to. Then it goes to the illustration again.   
  
It feels like seeing her soul bare.   
  
She knows she has to answer, but it takes a while before she manages to grab her pen and paper and write at the end of the notepad, away from the aircraft anecdotes.   
  
It’s hard to start, because normally Leah would get angry and defensive at people figuring her out, but when she tries to direct those feeling at Camille, she sees her words paraphrased inside her mind.  
  
“Anger at others is a reaction of love, because you are standing up for yourself when you’ve been proven wrong.” She murmurs in a scoffing tone, trying to dismiss the words, but they reach her core.  
  
And seeing as Camille didn’t do anything wrong, she can’t direct that energy towards her.  
  
That doesn’t mean that image doesn’t stop hovering around her thoughts, stealing her words away. Leah let the pages fall down on her side and raises the wolf illustration in front of her. It is so close to how she actually is when she shifts it sends a shiver through her spine. There’s no way for Camille to know how much she was able to understand Leah in such a short amount of time, and worse, there’s no way Leah can actually explain.  
  
All she knows is that she will not perpetrate any silence after the letter she read.  
  
After what feels like a long time, Leah gets up and places the illustration safely hidden under a few clothes, not wanting to risk put it in her bag just yet and ruining it. Even kept away, Leah feels like she still sees its eyes staring back at hers. She sighs, rereads Camille's letter. Procrastinate writing her own making a few google searches. Finally, when she can’t find any other excuses, she writes:

_“No offense, Camille, but your last letter was a lot to take in. I don’t mean the sheer size of it, just... I guess I’m not used at relating to someone, and having someone relating to me as well.  
  
This is not a bad thing, and I don’t wish to stop talking to you, but having someone to scream at the universe is something I’m not used to. _  
  
~~_I can’t understand how you appear to understand me so well with so little, and I hope you also feel understood by my words in return._ ~~  
  
_You write so clearly that I can imagine the indentation of the spirals against your arm and all I can say about it is that I’ll stop doubting about your existence in the world._  
  
_And, please, buy a decent notepad. Or write with it upside down. I don’t really mind._  
  
_Camille, your jokes are not as hard to figure out as you think they are. I’m sorry to break it to you, but they aren’t as subtle as you think they are._  
  
_My humor generally comes through some sort of anger, but as you pointed out, you don’t have too much issue with that set of emotions. Still, if I step ever take it too far, let me know. It would be a shame for you to lose such a great, eloquent, incredible, fantastical, pen pal. You’d hate that, I bet._  
  
_(And this is a joke not fueled by anger, in case you can’t tell. ~~You can. This was a double bluff, but you already realized that, didn’t you?~~ )_  
  
_To imagine you can know the whole trajectory of your ancestors like that is quite impressive. Mine, as far as I know, have lived here for centuries, so if you tell me what was the region that appeared on those journals I’ll probably know it._  
  
_My life has up and downs when it comes to habits, but pretty recently, I decided to learn how to become a pilot. I’m currently receiving classes for it, so I spend most of my time studying._  
  
_I never thought I would like to study, but turns out I’m quite good at storing information, it seems. I think after I finally get the hang of it I will probably want to work with it, because I doubt I will have the patience to study anything else._  
  
_Also because the idea is really appealing to me, even if I don’t know exactly how I will make a career out of this in a way that doesn’t piss me off. The idea of working for airlines seems too restricting, and that’s the most common route. I also don’t feel like working for the military, so I’m trying to come up with something. Any suggestions?_  
  
_As I’ve said, I’ve been around here my whole life, so I guess I can’t really imagine how it must be to be somewhere with so much sun and light. I don’t think I would mind it, but it’s really weird to imagine how that must be, to have blue skies most of the time. Even when I dream the clouds are the standard._  
  
_And no, no one here uses Celsius. Or meters, for that matter. Are you Canadian? Do you speak french and measures temperature based on the water? That sounds like the exact type of thing you could fit into a self-help book._  
  
_The best I can do when it comes to my feelings is to distract myself from them. I hate it that I know where they come from, I know exactly what caused them, and still... I can’t avoid them. I can’t forget it. It makes me feel weak, and that’s far down on my list of things I’d want to feel, as you can imagine._  
  
_I’m also the oldest sister, but I just have one little brother, Seth. He’s a great kid most of the time, so I don’t have any complaints when it comes to him._  
  
_Hikes, trails, jumping, we are sort of known for this kind of thing around here. Even if you are not an adventurous person, as long as you enjoy nature there’s something for you here._  
  
_If you ever drop by and needs a tour guide, I’ll probably be around. That is, if I’m not flying somewhere, all odds considered._  
  
_No, it was not the stamp. The dinosaur... is nice. It was the seal. At first glance I thought you were pretentious, putting up an act of some sort, but then I realized you are actually the opposite, when I realize you exist. Now I see you put seals for the same reason you would not send a letter upside down. You like the presentation._  
  
_Can’t judge you for that, if that’s your thing._  
  
_It’s hard, as I wrote earlier, to go through the catalyst for my sadness, but now I’m wondering: what your guess would be? I probably will talk about it if you get too close to the truth, and it intrigues me as to what an outsider would think is the root of everything._  
  
_I guess letting anyone this close to my feelings is the best of opposite directions I can possibly master. But there’s something about writing it out ( to you) that really helps._  
  
_If I were to describe it without giving it too much, not giving it away for the sake of the guessing question, I think... It’s a boiling kind of sadness. It has grief and regret, and sometimes guilt, but mostly anger, frustration, disappointment. It’s a very strong sentiment, and I admit, a very negative one. Doesn’t surprise people don’t want me around after they have a glimpse of what goes through inside my head._  
  
_To interpret your own feelings... As I just said, I’m familiar with the feeling of people sticking around in my head and trying to see what happens when they poke around. If that’s anywhere close to how you feel with all these presences too close I want you to know that I understand and that I’m sorry for this burden._  
  
_Does it burden you? How do you live with that?_  
  
_Camille._  
  
_I stared at your drawing for more time than I did any other art piece in my life. I don’t know how to compliment art styles and techniques, never did that before, so I will be honest and I hope you see the compliment among my lines._  
  
_Your art hit too close. I didn’t mention it to you, but I have a wolf tattoo on my shoulder, just to tell you the tip of the iceberg. To see your drawing was like staring at some hidden aspect of myself and I’m still a little in shock after looking at it. It makes me both want to keep staring at it for hours or hide in shame. I’m not offended, but I confess it felt like being exposed in a way I don’t know it’s allowed. I have no idea how you got something like that, and would really like to know, even if it's some sort of creative process you’d think people would think you’re crazy if you explain._  
  
_I don’t think you’re crazy, Camille, in any of your descriptions of feelings._  
  
_I don’t know if you will think I’m crazy for the way I relate to your descriptions, sometimes. I have felt like there were far more people in my head than it should be allowed, contradicting the whole “two bodies can’t occupy the same space”. I imagine if it’s a whole crowd in your case, then it can be really easy to get lost inside the maze, to stop to hear at those conversations and forget where you end and they begin if that’s happening inside of you. How did you deal with that? What was your solution? Did you eventually quiet down the voices? It sounds like you were able to, from what you wrote._  
  
_(I believe you, and I’m pretty sure I’m sane.)_  
  
_I’ve never lost my identity in that sense, but sometimes I feel I lose myself to myself, if that makes any sense. I lose myself to my impulses and issues. Most of the people that know me don’t think I would be able to articulate so rationally about the shit that goes inside my mind._  
  
_Though I had never attempted to try before you came around, so that’s something I should consider, too._  
  
_(Talking to you is easy. Is that something you hear often?)_  
  
_You might not like to read this, and I might be wrong, but you do sound like you have a lot figured out, or at least, most of it. You lost yourself and you were afraid you could not find it anymore, but now you did. Am I missing something?_  
  
_Without my pain, I think I would be more light. This shit drags me down like its stones around my ankles, slowing each step I take with an intake of suffering, never letting me rest from that crap._  
  
_(Writing to you helps. I focus so much on the words everything muffles. I had not realized this until right this second, writing this in a room that isn’t my own, in a bed that I lay that isn’t mine, and I hope that realizing it does not break the spell because I have never had a break like this before.)_  
  
_Your introduction questions are as good as they are superficial. I think it’s for the best they came through when they did. I don’t think many people would have answered any of our first letters, but we both did, and that’s working so far._  
  
_My favorite color is red. I like to laugh at any trash horror movie that comes through on the TV, but I don’t really like them enough to know their names. A song I’ve listened to often enough to actually know the name is Hurt, by the Nine Inch Nails. It’s older and it isn’t played around anymore, but I went on a show a few years back where there was a cover playing and I found myself murmuring the song on my way home. It hasn’t left my MP3 since._  
  
_No matter how close someone can get, there’s still a wall between you, your pain, and them. They can see it, but it will never be the same thing. I won’t ever be able to fully grasp your pain, nor your mine, but I think we get close enough to feel heard without the other person having to feel what happens inside of us. When it comes to other people, it’s often that I feel some sort of envy. It’s not that I want what they have, I just feel jealous that they don’t have to carry what I do, that they will never do._  
  
_Camille, your perspective on anger is something I had never considered. Now that I do, I don’t disagree with it._  
  
_Thank you for what you said. Your doubts do not diminish the person you actually are, Camille. You’re always there, underneath all the mess._  
  
~~_And so am I._ ~~  
  
_It takes far more than that to scare me off._  
  
_And you too, so it seems._  
  
_Leah.”_

Leah can barely think about the words she herself wrote on her answer as she makes her run towards the Postal Office. All that roams her mind is that image of that wolf with bleeding gums and wrecked iron in between its jaws. All that she hears is _lets share battle scars_ _and scream to the universe_ in a voice she doesn’t know, and Leah feels as if she’s about to stumble upon something big, but the epiphany is gone when she reaches the post office and has to focus on the process to send the letter away.   
  
It reaches her, however, when she’s back in front of the farm. She lingers in the yard for a moment, hesitates, and then doesn’t go inside. Instead, she keeps running, getting farther away from the farmhouses and closer to the nature that surrounds them. After the houses and the crops, there are woods and hidden corners.  
  
She crumbles down, falling under a large tree, supporting her weight in its curving roots.  
  
All around her, Leah can hear the rustling of the leaves, the small crickets, all signs of life. It helps to ground her. The image of the wolf, herself, Leah thinks, calls to her, and she hesitates, afraid someone will be already shifted and she will have to deal with her thoughts being messed around.   
  
_Fuck it,_ she looks around, checking she’s deep enough in the woods, and allow the transformation to go through her body after she hides her clothing under the roots.   
  
She waits, for a moment, focusing her mind on her surroundings. There’s nothing.  
  
Leah doesn’t run, instead of stalking slowly across the woods, letting her mind fixated on the image of the iron bars. Transformed as she is she can almost taste them against her canines.  
  
Instead, her brain goes towards her pain. She thinks about Sam, _really_ thinks about him, in a way she has not allowed herself to do in a long time. She doesn’t think about the good memories nor focuses specifically on the bad ones. She doesn’t focus on the parasitic imprinting feelings nor the lack of them on her own. She thinks about that man, her first love, her first boyfriend, who had caused, directly or not, her to go through so much.   
  
It hurts. Thinking about him clouds her mind even with the sharp wolf senses. She thinks about how it was back when he was her alpha, and all that emanated from him was guilt, not the kind you do when you are in the wrong, but when you inadvertently hurt someone around you, like a coworker you can’t avoid. She thinks about the moments she has seen of him and Emily, ponders about their love. It’s a love that hurts to think about, that fogs everything else, like it ever did, and Leah feels the anger that starts to trash inside her body, blending in with blind pain.   
  
Regretful, she wants to run from the feeling. She goes back to where her clothes are and return to her human shape, but the thoughts impregnate her mind. 

_Anything else_ , she demands her brain, even if it's not particularly being cruel or aggressive or self-deprecating, it's still more than what she knows she’s able to deal with. _I don’t want to think about the life I will never have._  
  
Without any reasoning, the mist of pain fades into a scene of a left-handed young woman sitting in a chair by the window and writing a letter with very rounded calligraphy. Leah can’t see her face, but she knows they share battle scars. That they understand each other.  
  
The wolf in her is certain of that fact.  
  
Tired, she walks back to the farmhouse.


	6. Freedom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I don't understand too well the notes system on AO3. Oh, well. I wrote something and it shall be somewhere, at some point, available.   
> Oh, any "standard pilot phrases" I got from google by researching exactly these words so... they are not really mine.   
> By the way, it came to my attention that Canadian uses all sorts of measurements for all sorts of things, so... Let's pretend that when I mention lack or excess of usage it's ironic when it needs to be, and serious when I'm right, because I just can't wrap my head around it. Thanks.

Connor watches Leah walking in the house and the question of why she skipped class swallows itself before it can be released. On her face, there is the kind of drain he would have seen in Clarissa, after a long time singing, when she was too exhausted to be coherent.   
  
He sees her pouring a glass of water and drinking it all up as if it was a shot.   
  
“No class today.” He finally makes himself noticeable, pushing his elbows against the kitchen counter from the living room side. She looks at him, a question on her face that she doesn’t take long to proclaim.  
  
“Why?” Her voice is hoarse.  
  
“Because I am tired.” It’s not necessarily true. He would be lecturing her if he had not noticed the mood shift. She was always too angry for him to be able to tell when she demonstrated any emotion, but right now the lack of her pissed off face scared him more than anything. “I know you want to get through this course as quick as you can, but we worked during the weekend, and I’m not really used to that. So today we are going to rest, and we pick things up where we left them tomorrow.”  
  
Leah stops, glancing up and down at him as if she was looking for something. He paralyzes upon her glance, hesitant, releasing his breath when she looks behind him, in the direction of the stairs.  
  
“Ok. I’ll make dinner in thirty.” She says, and goes back to her room. After it, he hears the shower running.  
  
Connor turns the TV on to muffle the sounds, avoiding the mental image it causes on his mind. Leah was just as attractive as she was scary, and that was a line he was not about to cross.  
  
He didn’t know who would kill him if he did.  
  
Leah, or Mary.  
  
The pilot would not risk it. He preffers to think about his Match profile instead.  
  
One hour later they are both in the living room, sitting on opposite corners, her on the smaller couch, he spread on the main one. They are eating fried chicken, and on the TV there is a comedy on.   
  
“Did Mary told you she was supposed to learn how to pilot?” He spurs out. Leah nods, adjusting the plate on her knees, midway through a chew. “Then that bastard happened. I hope he rots in hell.”  
  
Leah swallows.  
  
“She told me that she was shot, but she never really got too into detail about what happened.” Her voice is back to its usual, about to be angry, standard, Connor thinks.   
  
“She was making a presentation at our old school. I had insisted for her to come.” His voice, usually cheery, sours. “The theatre was full. This guy from my class just started blasting. Three students died before he was stopped. It would have been more, if it wasn’t for Mary.” He was being vague out of guilt, he knew it. He swallowed before clarifying. “The shooter went for   
Clarissa. Mary literally threw herself at him, from the stage, missed him, but the shot stopped on her. She saved my sister's life.”  
  
Leah nods, in silence, feeling like tracking the guy down and killing him, which wasn’t a good feeling for someone that could phase into a wolf to have.  
  
“What happened to him?”  
  
“Jail. At least that they got right.”  
  
Leah looks back at her plate and resumes eating. A few minutes with cheap jokes go by before her voice is heard again.  
  
“Mary didn’t save your sister. She saved her daughter.” Leah stands up and goes to wash her plate. When she returns to the living room she changes the subject. “How’s the schedule tomorrow?”  
  
“We can start early morning, but... I have Clark during the afternoon.” Leah nods in agreement.  
  
“It’s better if I get some sleep, then. Good night, Connor.”  
  
“Good night.”

*

There’s a dream where Leah is on the outside of the cages. She stares at her wolf self, seeing it hurt and aching from the wounds between its teeth. However, even though she destroyed the cage, Leah still cannot get inside, because the door is locked.  
  
And Sam is the one holding the keys.  
  
She dreams of a different variation of that scenario during her week. Sometimes it’s both her and the wolf locked in together. Sometimes she and the wolf are attacking each other, and in others, they are just standing silently side by side.  
  
One time is just her.  
  
When it comes to the classes, things are starting to work in her favor again. Connor quizzes her frequently about the cockpit, but not less than just showing her to his office and giving her another round on the simulator.   
  
Leah doesn’t hate the simulator. She hates the idea of failing in the actual Skyhawk as she is doing on the simulator and suffering some pretty bad injuries.   
  
At the end of that week, she’s able to keep her eye on all the indicators and keep it afloat at the same time, and they both call it a victory.  
  
Once, when her mom calls, Jacob is around, and talks to her about Carlisle’s aid. When she isn’t inside his head it’s easier, she realizes, to not be as angry when she talks. When he doesn’t keep mentioning his _situation_ she doesn’t even feel the urge to tell him to go to hell, which is a good one, and by the end of the call, when he jokes about her being in an actual good mood for once she snaps, but more to stay in character than anything else.  
  
The middle of the week arrives and Leah hears for the first time the sound of a vacuum inside those walls. She feels a little embarrassed that it had not crossed her mind to help with these tasks before, but the place always looked somewhat clean at all times, with Connor being insistent on the rule of everyone cleaning for themselves, for instance. Still, she jumps in to help with the chores, not being too bothered when Connor says that’s another off day when they’re done.   
  
The days mend in along with each other.  
  
One night, she does not dream with the wolf. Instead, she’s on Sam and Leah’s place. They aren’t doing anything particularly painful, just existing around each other. She’s doing the dishes and he hugs her from behind before putting the plates away.   
  
Her heart stings.  
  
 _How does it feel to be too broken to have someone like you?_ Her mind tortures her, and she can’t answer. She tries to run away, but realizes she’s inside that cage, locked up.  
  
 _How does it feel to be too angry to ever recognize love, too sour to ever receive it? How does it feel to know that everybody can find the one, except for you?_ She hears while she struggles   
against the bars. Her own mouth is shut, and there’s nothing she can say, no way to avoid the dragging pain that parasites her own heart.   
  
Nonetheless, a whisper crosses around her ears, passing by like the wind, and it tells, simply, that _being angry at when you feel wronged is a form of love, not the lack of it._  
  
When Leah wakes up, it takes more than usual to remind herself of her aching.

  
*

Every brain cell Leah has is focusing on the simulator. She can feel the tension on the vein around her neck by simply how static she is at that moment, staring at every piece of information on the screen and processing it at once, acting on them, staring at the fake blue sky on the screen. At some moments her attention slips, but never too far away from reality. It can be a small thing, like realizing her shoelaces are untied, or something larger, like the excitement that she’s actually doing it and she’s so close to actually start going on the Skyhawk.   
  
But most of all, she’s focusing on the screens and controls in front of her, interpreting them. Keeping the fake fly afloat. Up high. Decoding the coordinates, and saying the phrases she went through with Connor.  
  
“Cleared to Stockholm, Arlanda airport,” she’s talking another of the standard phrases. Sometimes Leah thinks the hardest part is the vocabulary that comes with being a pilot, almost like another branch of the English language “via the SKORR3 departure, RNGRR transition, then as filed,” Leah takes a breath. She’s about to finish that paragraph, which she knows by heart, when the doorbell rings.  
  
Her mind jumps out of the simulation and thinks about wolves, Canadian provinces, and Camille, her concentration going to the drain.   
  
Connor laughs at her scare.  
  
“Let me get it.” He says, going out of the office. Leah listens to the grumbles of basic socialization, door opening, delay, then closing, and then he’s there again. Two envelopes he puts to himself, one he hands out to her. The white seal is made of wax. “The little things can be distracting when we are just starting, but you’ll get the hang of it. In no time you’ll be able to get on the zone even while a flock of birds screech by your window.”  
  
She half hears him, her fingers going around the envelope. Connor doesn’t miss it.  
  
“Who is it?” He asks, cocking his head curiously.   
  
“A penpal.” She says, and realizes the edge on her voice. Leah forces her heart to calm a little. There’s no reason to be defensive over a letter.  
  
Connor once more does not seem to notice the mood shift.   
  
“Mary got you into it, didn’t she?” He snores. “She tried doing that with me when I was in college, but I just could not get around it. I like tech too much for that.” A pause. “We have two more hours to go, or you can have a break and read it.”  
  
She looks at the envelope, places it carefully by her side, and shakes her head horizontally, in a clear “no”.   
  
“Let’s go back to it. I wanna try again.”  
  
Leah's concentration returns in a moment. She thought that having the letter by her side and the curiosity of wanting to read it would make her lose focus, but it actually seems the opposite. Knowing that the letter is right by her side clears a part of her mind that kept wondering when it would arrive, not that she was consciously thinking that, and getting on the zone, as Connor calls it, happens almost as smoothly as her shifting.  
  
She realizes she’s able to keep it up while being aware of her surroundings, and sees Connors's nod of approval.  
  
“You have a really steady rhythm.” He compliments. She tries to acknowledge it, but the simulation calls for her once more.  
  
By the end of it, it is not a failure that ends the class, but simply the time going up.   
  
“I’m going out tonight,” Connor says. “And I don’t know exactly when I will come back, but keep a look around.”   
  
“Gotcha.” She tells him, about to leave the office.  
  
“I mean it. We are really close to the wild and there are all sorts of people around. Just, keep an eye open, ‘k?”  
  
“I can handle myself.” She realizes this sounds rude only after she said it, and leaves out a deep sigh. “I won’t let anything happen to your house. Don’t worry. Go have fun.”  
  
He smiles at her, appreciative, and places a hand on her shoulder.  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
She skips across the stairs on the way to the room, then closes the door before cracking the seal, the crunch sound never failing to be at least a bit satisfying.   
  
When she takes the pages out of the envelope, Leah can’t help but let a small smile cross her face at the yellow pages, imagining Camille taking her words about buying another notepad seriously.  
  
She starts to read, that smile still threatening to come through her face:

_“Hi, Leah._   
  
_I was really glad that you answered the letter. I kept overthinking it over the days it took to get here, thinking I went too far, that I should not be throwing stuff at you like that when we just met... And then you just kept shouting along with me._   
  
_Would it be too forward of me to consider you a friend? Because I do. I have these daily walks to the local river where I wonder about how must it be where you live, if you have favorite spots around there. Or I will look at two people interacting and wonder what sarcastic, snappy comment you would gossip to me about them. If that’s the kind of thing you do, whatsoever. I imagine ourselves walking together trying to guess other people’s names based on their outfits, and how it must be to laugh at your jokes with you by my side (I always assume you laugh at my jokes and I hope I’m not wrong about that) and I think those are all things friends would do, so I call you friend when I think about you. There’s no problem with that, does it?_   
  
_You might notice, by the way, that the paper is different. Indeed, it would bother me a great deal if I wasted perfectly good paper by writing in it upside down, Leah. You should know better than to suggest such an atrocious concept. What do you think I am, a Fahrenheit-miles individual? How dare you!_   
  
_Terrible insults aside, I think you’d be pleased to know I bought actual writing paper, meant for letters. Before you think it's a silly expense, look again at that seal you broke to read this and think of it as my brand._   
  
_You’d be surprised to know, Leah, how often my words fly over people’s heads. You’d think I’m speaking Greek, honestly. To have someone like you, so eloquent, incredible, gorgeous, fantastical pen pal to actually understand me... Oh, it would be such a shame to lose you, my friend. Don’t you dare make me go through that._   
  
_(Your jokes inspire mine; neither are angry, both are funny only by arguably standards. I’m glad we can get along just as well in sadness as in joy.)_   
  
_Time is a funny thing. I felt more understood in these last months than in years, perhaps my own life. Normally I would be ashamed to say that, but once more... we seem to be in synch about some things._   
  
_I’m aware that my knowledge about my ancestors is higher than average, considering all the historical events our countries have been through. (It’s weird to call myself a Canadian, when I read through the journals and we’ve moved to this place so recently in comparison.)_   
  
_The place I read about is La Push. Does it sound familiar?_   
  
_You’re a pilot? Oh well, now I’m imagining you like one of those old movies, dressed like Amelia Earhart, going through the skies._   
  
_(Don’t you dare disappear, Leah.)_   
  
_I bet you’re confident during your training, that you have all of your shit together. I can only think of you like that, getting your degree or whatever it is that pilots have, and doing something adventurous, perhaps dangerous. Delivering needs to inhospitable places far on Alaska, or something like that. Definitely adventurous, but not military, either, I agree that I can’t see that happening with you._   
  
_Oui, Leah. But I won’t bore you with lines you’d have to work your way through to translate. My self-help book is coming out completely fine, thank you for your concern._   
  
_Oh, now that I know you’re a pilot, I will be doing much more than asking for a tour guide. I will just ask for a ride if I ever drop by. Who knows, maybe you can take me to that La Push place?_   
  
_If I would try to guess about the sadness you experiment, Leah, I would sound cruel after my presumptions, but I think you prefer a harsh truth (even if it turns out to be incorrect) than a polished lie I don’t believe in._   
  
_I think you got really hurt, and I don’t think that’s your fault. The details I have no way to know and there are so many things that could have happened, but it was the sort of impact that marks your life with a before that and an after that._   
  
_And in your after that, you suffer a lot. You suffer because of a great amount of change, but you’ve been suffering for so long that, considering that you can stop sounds... heretical. Wrong._   
  
_I don’t think you inflict that pain in yourself on purpose, but I do wonder if you might get lost if you think how the absence of that pain would feel like, and what that would mean in regards to the events that transpired against/with you. I wonder if you started to see the weight that drags you down like an anchor._   
  
_After the honor (and there is no sarcasm here) of being able to get close to you, I’m once more hoping I have not crossed a line. I trust your tolerance just as I hope you do mine, but it’s hard to know._   
  
_I will lay myself bare here and try to make up for this, as well as going along with your most recent letter._   
  
_You nailed it, Leah. You do what no one else is able to, because you believe in me._   
  
_When it started it wasn’t so bad. A suggestion here, a tip there. I always sounded grown up because of that, knowing most of the time what risks to take, but it wasn’t bad. It was like having a clear conscience. Then it filled up along the years._   
  
_(I have an argument against insanity. I know you don’t believe me to be insane and I’m so thankful for that but I know how insane I sound when people don’t know the whole story and you don’t. I think I’m about to let it spill at some point, but I’m not over the things I’m scared about and some of them are getting closer, Leah, so I fear how many of my words could be found, even under a seal like mine.)_   
  
_Then it got so crowded that I lost myself. I followed the motions, but I wasn’t there. Everyone else was, instead. My body became a house and I was at the front step, trying to come in._   
  
_When I couldn’t, I tried to burn it down._   
  
_My breakdown was what it took for me to regain control. When I did impose myself, I got respect. Now, they are more similar to my childhood than everything else._   
  
_It’s hard to explain, but I’m the best I can be in my situation. It’s not that hard, most days. Some are worse, but I guess it’s like that when you have roommates inside your head._   
  
_Your impression of my art astonishes me, humbles me, exhilarates me. It came so suddenly, the piece almost took over me, and when it was done I knew I had to make a print and send it out to you._   
  
_As far as crazy processes go, my head has its perks. I guess we are both exposed in between our words._   
  
_Sometimes you write things like that, like “there were far more people in my head than it should be allowed” and I see years of my life, I see good and bad days, introvert thoughts and questions, and the thousand journals I’m currently moving to a digital back up on my free time and I wonder if you are another conscience that is almost mine, or if I’m a conscience that is almost yours, and then I reread your surprise about how I understand you and I understand your surprise as well and it’s the weirdest feeling._   
  
_A completely honest friendship._   
  
_If I still go by the assumption that your anger became a huge part of your character, I can imagine how that can throw people off, and I’m sorry for every harm that has happened around you, about all the hurts you feel, and, more importantly, those you might have inflicted, because I suspect those will be the ones that will ache the most._   
  
_(Then it turns out I’m wrong about my whole theory and I will sound like a clown. How funny would that be?)_   
  
_Yes, Leah. Sometimes I swear I have a grip on things just like I told you._   
  
_And then there will be times I will wonder if I ever truly resurfaced. If I’m me, and that’s not on the voices, it’s just my own head. Ironically, it is my doubt that grounds me._   
  
_Still, I’m always under the fear that I’ll end up missing myself._   
  
_I’m glad writing helps, but sorry if I’m a little confused about your whereabouts. Your letters come from the same region you tell me you are from, and yet you say you lay in a bed that is not your own. I think I lost something in translation. I’m really glad it helps._   
  
_Our timing surely is something, huh. My favorite color is moss green. When I’m watching movies by myself, I like those that bring me comfort, and they end up being considered somewhat childish by those who haven’t watched. Examples could be Princess Mononoke, but you can also find me rewatching Matilda for the 500th time at any time, I guess._   
  
_I listened to your song, and my heart ached for yours. It’s really good regardless of its message, but having learned what I now know about you, it’s really impactful._   
  
_When it comes to music, there are many artists I enjoy, and many albums I listen to over and over, like reading folklore tales in form of melodies, and I could not recommend all of those without developing some sort of carpal tunnel syndrome. I will settle by telling you that Fleetwood Mac is one of my favorite bands to ever grace this planet, and it’s really difficult for me to rank their albums in any way, but recently I’ve been listening more to “Mirage”. It’s also an older album, by your standards. A less played one in comparison to the rest of their catalog._   
  
_If you ever stop by to listen, I’d love to know your thoughts._   
  
_You see my pain as I see yours, Leah? I feel like you do, like I do, and sometimes I don’t know what to do with this feeling. I told you some time ago that I’m selfish - the concept of someone else getting a hold of what’s going on is terrifying._   
  
_(Alas, the way you told me you reacted to my illustration, I think that’s just another feeling you can understand)_   
  
_Your words warm my heart, Leah. If it counts for anything, I don’t think your anger makes you a bad person. I also don’t think, considering the turmoils you described, that the absence of anger would leave you bare._   
  
_Just some food for thought here._   
  
_We’ve both seen a fair share of crap, Leah. And felt just as much._   
  
_I don’t see myself running away now._   
  
_Friendly,_   
  
_Camille.”_

Leah chuckles, then laugh hysterically, then crumble across the mattress and it takes a moment to realize that the movement from her chest is due to crying, crashing against her ribcage.   
  
The words that swirl inside her head are part wolf, part woman, partly written. There are things she should worry about on that letter, but all that sways over her is the feelings, the pain she held on for so long.  
  
Her mind goes to Sam. When they met, he looked at her as if she was gold. When he met Emily, he looked at her like she was glorious. And the difference was clear enough.   
  
When Leah shifted, he thought of her as a wounded soldier, bleeding on the battlefield, one that had to be left behind so they could win the war.  
  
Leah thinks of how it was on the good days. Sam was someone she felt, during her teenage years, that she should love. Love him she did. Falling in love was a line on the sand, something to cross over. They kissed more than spoke back then, and he was a good kisser. They weren’t exceptional, but they felt steady and secure, until all of that crumbled with the imprinting.  
  
Leah spends years grieving the loss of that sense of security, the absence of that safe land. She saw every other wolf fall down as domino for the urge of the imprinting, and how said force ran away from her, leaving her alone.  
  
She hated being alone. She hated that feeling that the universe had backstabbed her, giving her something and then taking it back and giving everyone else something better, and leaving her with nothing.  
  
It was when it hit her: she could not think of a single, individual thing that Sam did during their relationship that would be a true defining trait of his. She can’t think of a secret told in the middle of the night, nor a fire burning on his eyes, just a boy figuring himself out and trying his best to love her in the process.  
  
And she wasn’t angry about it, because that was just how she was, as well. Leah anchored herself to him, too tightly, which she was only now seeing, years later, that she missed more the idea of being loved than the idea of being loved by him.   
  
Realizing that was a point of no turning back, and her heart screamed one last time, before it tore open, bare, resting under layers of herself.  
  
Empty.   
  
Letting go of wanting him, realizing it was never truly him she wanted, but the joy of that love, the idea that something could last forever, the idea of someone that would not run away, the safety that came with a long lasting love, all that first-love illusions...  
  
 _They all will run away, Leah. You may realize that Sam wasn’t truly right for you years later, but that only means you were always meant to be alone._ Her mind taints her, and the loneliness is a poison spreading.   
  
Was being alone all that was left for her?  
  
She thought about it for a second, quieting down her tears.   
  
Leah came to the conclusion that didn’t sound honest to her. Yes, her years of anger had drawn everyone away, but she was able to be appreciated when she didn’t allow that anger to cloud her thoughts and sour her tongue. She could laugh with Seth, hear stories with Mary. She could make casual conversation with Jacob or Connor. Damn, she could even let a vampire mom give her food.  
  
Most of all, when she wasn’t defined by only her anger and heartbreak, Leah could share intimate letters with someone that truly considered her a friend.  
  
Camille was someone Leah had never seen, never met in person, and yet, her words put her closer to the shifter than anyone else had ever dared to go. Camille had decided to become her friend while in the midst of the anger and the sadness, and had seen her for who she was.  
  
Who Leah was also starting to see that she was, as well.   
  
She was able to make friends and acquaintances when she wasn’t a complete jerk.  
  
There was a long way to go, still, but that thought alone was reassuring.  
  
Her heavy breathing gives way to silent tears, and then, tired, Leah falls asleep.  
  
When she wakes up, there are a few things Leah is aware of:  
  
It’s dark outside. She slept close to the pages on Camille’s letter, but was lucky enough to not crumble or tear them.   
  
There’s noise downstairs from movement, and her phone is glowing with a notification.  
  
She goes for the phone first.  
  
 _Going to stay the night out. Don’t wait up for me. -Connor._  
  
Leah jumps from the bed, now much more aware, awaking herself. She doesn’t bother to put on shoes, walking across the wood plates on the floor with ease. She also doesn’t care about being heard, realizing the exact moment when it happens.  
  
“Shit, did he come back?” Is an obvious giveaway.   
  
Her eyes are puffy from too little sleep and her early breakdown, but that’s easy to miss with the anger on her gaze.  
  
Not even Camille would call that the loving kind.  
  
One masked stranger is grabbing the TV, the other one opening a really large suitcase. They freeze at seeing her for only one second, before the one with the suitcase swings around his feet.  
  
“Now, c’mon, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If you just let us get the stuff without making a fuzz, we won’t harm you.”  
  
Leah’s face is expressionless when she turns her eye to the door.  
  
“How did you get in?” She asks, nonchalant. Neither answer, but she sees the disrupt lock. “How are you going to pay for that?”  
  
The other guy laughs.  
  
“Send us the bill after we cash in here, sweetie.”  
  
Her hands are clenched in fists close to her body.  
  
“Please, leave, and don’t return, and I won’t call the cops.”   
  
“Knock her out already, Matt.” The one in front of her says. Matt, the one who was grabbing the TV places it once again on the counter and goes towards Leah.  
  
He goes to strike her head. Leah considers, for a heartbeat, then lets him strike her skull. She doesn’t feel a thing, but he screams in pain, arching his hand back. He’s halfway through the move when she grabs his broken fist and twists his arm, pushing it towards his direction, forcing the man on his knees.   
  
The other man takes out a gun.  
  
She sighs, rolling her eyes.   
  
_Can’t believe I was woken up for this shit._  
  
Leah gives a look to the guy on his knees.  
  
“You stay put, or else I’ll break something much more valuable to you than your little fingers, ok?” He nods vehemently, and she nods once back before getting up. 

His hands are shaking around the gun.  
  
“I don’t want to shoot a lady. If you just quiet down we can finish our business and leave.”  
  
She takes advantage of his hesitation and grabs the gun from the barrel, using it as if a cog to turn a wheel, if a wrist could be considered one.  
  
The crack is loud. He lets go of the gun, she grabs it.  
  
“Now, can you tell me what the fuck was happening here?” She inquires, while gesturing with the gun for the other guy to kneel by his friend's side. “Why here? Why tonight?”  
  
“The guy’s rich and lonely. We were on a stakeout, waiting for the place to be empty.”  
  
“If you were waiting, you’d know I’m here.” She snarls. “The truth, now.”  
  
“We...” He stutters, “we thought you were just a hookup.” She sees his hesitation with the words, as if that wasn’t the first one that crossed his mind. “We didn’t think you’d be a problem.”   
  
His voice shakes.  
  
“You haven’t seen me when I’m a problem.” She snarls, one of her fists still clenched. Knowing she can handle things in her human form does not mean the wolf in her isn’t roaring. “So you better collaborate. Did you get anything else?”   
  
“We just arrived.” The other one informs. “Please don’t kill me.”  
  
Leah walks backward towards the landline, watching them. She forces her hand to unclench so she can grab the phone and the gun at the same time, and dials 911 with her knuckles. Leah gives the address and informs of a break-in.   
  
Her second call is to Connor.  
  
“This better be good.” She hears his frustration.  
  
“Sorry for cock blocking you, pal. Do you know any guys called Mark, and...” She moves the gun up and down, inquiring for a name “and Steve?”  
  
“No, I don’t.” His voice starts to sound concerned. “Should I?”  
  
“They were trying to steal your TV just now. I called the cops. If you’re in the area they will probably want to speak with you.” Her voice is _I forgot the milk_ kind of casual.  
  
A frustrated groan, shuffled sounds of a duvet being messed around.   
  
“I’ll be right back.” There’s a pause, then an exclamation. “Oh, are you hurt, by the way?”  
  
“I told you I can handle myself.” She reassures him.  
  
“Are you with those guys?”  
  
“I would not be chit-chatting if this situation wasn’t one I could handle, Connor.” She hangs up.  
  
It takes forty-five minutes to get the whole thing solved, and Leah almost wishes she had not called the cops so she could be sleeping. After Connor explains that she’s his student and they live together they stop bothering her about being a possible suspect, then turn around to speak about the men injuries.  
  
“Self-defense.” She keeps herself brief. Eyebrows are arched towards her. Leah sighs. “I have a lot of brothers.” That seems to do the trick.   
  
When they are inside and Connor is checking over his TV and other possessions, making sure everything seems fine, she takes a look at his shaggy hair.  
  
“How did you know it would happen?” She asks. “You were pretty worried this afternoon.”  
  
Connor sighs.  
  
“A few of the neighbors were complaining about missing things, but I didn’t want to concern you, so I didn’t say anything. Sorry.”  
  
Leah thinks that if she was a human, she would have been blacked out or shot because he didn’t want to concern her.   
  
Then she thinks that she’s not just a human, so she shrugs.  
  
“It’s ok.”  
  
“You can handle yourself, I get it.” He guesses.   
  
“How was the date, by the way?” She asks, humoring him as she watches Connor going to the fridge to grab a beer.   
  
“It was going really great before some guys decided they wanted my TV.” He sighs. “We rescheduled, though.” He looks at Leah with the fridge door half open. “Do you want one?”  
  
“Yeah.” She accepts it and they sit on the couch. “Is she nice?” Leah tries to make conversation.  
  
“He is.” Connor corrects, mindlessly. “Old high school fling crossed ways with me last time I went to the store.” He laughs, moves the can of beer in his hand. “I was buying these, and now   
I’m drinking talking about him. What a coincidence.”  
  
Coincidences make her think of Camille. How would she react when Leah told her that she had delayed her answer because she had to interrupt a robber? The thought made her want to laugh.  
  
“You’re smiling.” Connor points out. She raises the can to her mouth and shrugs.  
  
“I guess it’s been some time since I last had one of these.”   
  
They drink in silence. Normally there would be some white noise, but the TV is still unplugged.  
  
When Connor finishes, he gets up and throws it on the trash can.  
  
“I’m glad you’re ok, Leah. Thanks for today.”  
  
She gives him a small nod, finishing her beer alone, in the living room.   
  
Leah feels the adrenaline leaving her body, the exhaustion from the earlier cry, and something else. Better, she feels the lack of something else.  
  
When she walks to throw the can in the trash, she realizes she doesn’t feel dragged down.  
  
“The idea of someone.” She murmurs to herself, shaking her head in disbelief. “Who would’ve thought.”  
  
Leah walks back to her room, gather the pages around, drowns herself in Camille’s words.  
  
Then writes her answer:

_“Hey, Camille._   
  
_I don’t mind being your friend. On the contrary, I realize that getting to know you and you knowing me is not a bother, at all._   
  
_I can imagine you looking at someone and making up a whole life for them inside your head on the spot, and me complementing along. Because I grew up in the same place, so close to a small town, there was no way I could play these kinds of games inside my head, because everyone knows everyone, so I don’t know if I would be inclined to do that._   
  
_I’d be inclined to listen to you, however._   
  
~~_Sometimes I laugh imagining a joke you’d make when I’m not reading your letters, so I suppose that’s what friendship is like._ ~~   
  
_The paper really goes along with the seal, the perfume, the stamps. I bet all your dramatic tendencies will look great in your book._   
  
_Great that you found a friend that can appreciate all of that._   
  
_I confess it is a relief that we aren’t boring when we are nice. You showed me that, you should know. I’ll address this already, but you got really close in your assumptions, and your insight helped one of my own; I went really high, then low, and now... I almost forgot it was possible to feel this light, so I thank you._   
  
_Because I told you I would tell you if you got close and you did, it was a heartbreak. I feel pathetic admitting it now, because it sounds like such a girly silly thing to be that sad and angry about, but that was it. For the first time I feel healed, and now, instead of ache, I just feel second-hand embarrassment to talk about something that burdened me for so long, go figure._   
  
_I was born and raised in La Push, Camille, and I must admit, the idea of you reading about the place where I grew up in some old diary makes me really anxious. What did your ancestors write about mine?_   
  
_I think you’ll find it amusing to know I do not have my shit together most of the time when it comes to the instructions. I just got a hand on the flying simulation aspect of the whole thing, and before that, I would want to rip my hair out at how often I failed at such minuscule things. I can’t wait to see how I’ll deal with a real plane. But as soon as I figure it out I’ll know how much to charge for that ride._   
  
_Your suggestion makes a lot of sense, though. Guess I have some googling to make now._   
  
~~_I bet you sound good in French._ ~~   
  
~~_I thought I wasn’t going to mention your deductions, but... I did hold onto that for far too long, long enough to shape a few parts of me. I hope I like the person I am without those._ ~~   
  
_All you did was once more surprise me with how much you are able to comprehend. When you write to me your words say things so precisely that it’s weird to imagine that not everyone has the same understanding of you that I seem to have, and it’s probably true the other way around, then._   
  
_Sometimes I wonder if I started to understand you better than myself. After all, I only came to my epiphany after your guesses. I don’t know what that says about me._   
  
_To be right in my own assumptions of you makes me curious, even more when you tell me there are things I don’t know. It makes me wonder, ~~what are you,~~ what kind of person you are._   
  
_I guess we will keep being blown away by how our friendship seems to work so effortlessly. I do like that about us._   
  
_Indeed, I did inflict pain when I was drowning on my own, and when I reflect on the harm I have done all I see is how the most wounded person ended up, all times, being myself. It’s difficult, for me, to realize my mistakes, I do have a really huge pride, but I won’t fight against evidence, against plain truth, not anymore._   
  
_Camille, I’m your friend. Yours. I write to you and I read your words, not anybody else’s. Your identity, your brand, your authenticity writing a first letter that was sad as fuck... That’s all you. You’re very much yourself, despite all your doubts._   
  
_I mean it. You know I do._   
  
_I don’t recall having watched any of these movies, but I’ll keep them in mind if the opportunity ever comes up. The same applies to your album recommendations._   
  
_It’s weird how one letter can change a whole song. Now, Hurt will bring me back to a period of my life I’m no longer in. I guess I need to get back to listening to the radio more often._   
  
_You saw my pain as if you had torn my heart open and held it in your hands. I don’t know if my way of seeing it is anywhere near yours._   
  
_But I see some things, I’ll give myself some credit. I see you saying that you’re not over the things that you’re scared about and some of them are getting closer. Are you in danger? I know asking it through a letter that takes two weeks to get to you won’t do much, but if there is anything going on, you can talk to me. I’ll do whatever I can to help you, all things considered._   
  
_I hope this letter gets to you earlier than usual and I can ease my worries. I really hope you’re ok._   
  
_Oh, and as I’m on the topic, this letter might reach you a day or two later than the usual. I normally write my replies the same day I get your letters, and yesterday when I would do that Connor’s (my aircraft instructor) place was broke in. I’m unharmed, the two guys were complete idiots. They really should not have messed with me when I was due to writing to you. Nor after an existential crisis. It was really bad timing of their part._   
  
_(I thought you’d find this somewhat funny. I hope I’m right.)_   
  
_Camille, I’m not going anywhere. (At least, not anywhere where I could not send you a letter from.)_   
  
_Stay safe._   
  
_Leah.”_

It’s early in the morning when Leah repeats her ritual of getting ready, folding her letter on her back pocket, and getting out of the house.   
  
“Leah?” She stops at Connor’s calling, staring at the broken knob on the door, unhinged from the wood.   
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“You’re going to the post office, right?”  
  
“Yeah.” Her eyes shrink, skeptically.  
  
“Could you drop by the market and bring some eggs? I think I’ll make us an omelet.”  
  
It sounds like a great idea. Leah’s stomach agrees with that.  
  
She nods.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Walking does well to her head. Walking feels better than it usually does, the lightness still perpetrating on her steps. The only thing that does hold her back is Camille's words, things she fears getting closer.  
  
Leah's hands go back to be like fists against her legs, and she has to stretch the fingers out, individually, to keep herself from getting too anxious.  
  
 _She’s ok, Leah._ She tells herself. _Camille knows how to handle things._  
  
 _But Camille isn’t a gigantic wolf with a very resistant_ body. _She’s friends with one, but she’s human._  
  
Leah can’t help but have that lingering concern.  
  
At the post office, the attendant is already familiarized with her and doesn’t take long to get everything set up. Just minutes after she walked in she’s already out, her letter ready to go somewhere inside the agency.  
  
She keeps walking across the surroundings blocks, going to the nearest supermarket, to grab some eggs.  
  
On her way out, Leah realizes that there’s a bookstore by the side.  
  
She puts the eggs away for a moment, not wanting to risk causing an accident, and walks in, hesitant at first, until she finds the CD section of the store. It’s organized by alphabetic order, which makes it easier for her to find “Mirage”. Leah buys it, thinking she could listen to it in the small radio over the nightstand in the bedroom, then returns to the main area of the market and pays for the eggs, then she’s walking back to the farm.  
  
There, Connor makes a good breakfast. Leah thinks his omelets lack salt, but she doesn’t say it out loud, just eats everything in front of her, and, as a matter of principle, offers to do the dishes.  
  
After that, he calls her to class. She starts to go to the office, then stops when realizes that he’s walking towards the backyard doors.  
  
“Want to see the real deal?”  
  
“Are you serious?”  
  
“The skies are good today.”   
  
“Am I ready for that?”  
  
“To fly on your own, not yet, but you made really great progress, Leah. I think seeing how the real thing works will help you. So, do you want it?”  
  
Leah blinks a few times, her mouth is half-open, then, slowly, nods.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, I’d really like that.”  
  
“Then let's go.”  
  
Leah feels her heart pumping quickly, her movements happening with ease as she follows Connor. Even if she’s just going to watch it happen, it will still be her first time inside a plane.  
  
She’s not afraid of the idea.  
  
“What do I have to do before we can fly, Leah?” He asks her, and both the manual and his lecturing flow through her mind. She walks him through as he makes oil checks, and all the other settings. Then they go inside. “Tell me what I have to do.”  
  
“Getting out of the garage is a good start.” She jokes, and, to her surprise, he actually laughs.   
  
“And after that?”  
  
She recalls the studies she’s been doing all these weeks, the simulations and the readings, every acronym, and all the steps they meant. He nods approvingly as he does those things, correcting her once or twice.  
  
Then they are flying.   
  
Leah is aware of him speaking, but her gaze is on the window. She thought flying would make the world look smaller, but it just looks larger and larger, able to swallow her whole.  
  
“We will fly at a low altitude today, just so you can see how it works, then progress as the days go by.” He explains. “Lucky for us the sky is gin-clear today.”  
  
She nods, still pressing her forehead against her window, watching how she’s off the ground. It’s exhilarating.  
  
It’s freeing. 


	7. Connections

The next day, Connor calls her to the office. He sat her down and asked her to walk him through the motions they executed the day before. They simulate flight during hours, going over and over about everything, ingraining it on her memory.  
  
The day after that Connor asks Leah if she would like to be on the backseat of the aircraft while he’s teaching his next client, saying he would not bother it. Leah accepts.  
  
She stays silent as they perform their motions. Leah admits to not be one to trust strangers, even ones that are piloting planes, so she watches every move he makes with skeptical glances, and end up learning more motions, short cuts between gestures, and more acronyms.  
  
Connor acts just as warm with his client as he does with her, lecturing him in a way that reminds Leah a lot of Mary, when she gets in the zone, telling about a story.  
  
The guy doesn’t try to make small talk with Leah, but he’s not impolite, she thinks, just busy. He doesn’t seem bothered when she pries to whatever he’s doing, either.  
  
On the next day, she calls Mary.   
  
On the day after that Connor throws her off guard.  
  
“If I fell asleep right now, would you know what to do?” He asked, almost mechanically.  
  
“Yeah, I think so.” She opens her mouth to go through the motions when Connor closes his eyes and throws his hands up.  
  
Immediately, she gets her hands back where his were, making sure the wings are leveled, checking the altimeter and the vertical speed indicators with a brief glance, the twist on her back uncomfortable, but she barely registers it as she stabilizes the current altitude. Leah remembers to be very gentle in all her motions, to keep steady, knowing it’s too easy to fuck things up if she went too far.  
  
Connor yaws dramatically and pushes her aside.  
  
“Good job.”  
  
“That was...” She had been level-headed, but now, as he takes back control, she realizes there’s adrenaline in her veins. “Quite something.” She concludes, finally.  
  
“Normally it isn’t as surprising. I should’ve let you in control in the first minutes the first time you got on the plane, but I wanted to see how you’d react to something more unorthodox.”   
  
“So, how did I react?” She inquires.   
  
“We are still up.” He smiles largely. “That’s the best praise a pilot can get.”  
  
On the day after that, Connor makes Leah go through all the theoretical process of how it would be if he had actually passed out. Her guard is up in case he does something like that again, but he keeps his eyes open.  
  
“It can happen with some pilots.” He warns her. “When they are not used to the pressure.”  
  
It’s the end of the week and Leah is glad that she’s doing more practical work, because it gives her mind a break from worrying about Camille.  
  
_Don’t be in danger_ , she will find herself muttering. _I don’t wanna lose you._  
  
On her day off, to distract her mind, she researches about the most unusual pilot careers, and everything she sees seems much more fulfilling than commercial flights.   
  
The day after that Connor starts teaching her about flying maneuvers. They had already gone through this, but on simulation only, and it’s a much different thing when it happens in practice.  
  
She realizes that Connor is slowly stretching their time on-air, even when he doesn’t mention it, with their dinners happening farther into the night. One hour total becomes one hour back and forth and then so on, and so on, even if the range is small. Leah doesn’t mind.   
  
The next time he asks her to take control of things he doesn’t close his eyes, and she feels truly in charge of things. It’s rewarding just as it's intimidating. She savors it, going through each step inside her mind as she does them around, like a dance practice of some sort.   
  
The day after that class is cut short, because of Connor’s rescheduling date.  
  
No one breaks in this time.   
  
Ten days went by since Leah mailed her letter, and sometimes Camille will cross her mind even when she’s high on the air. That night she goes out and runs the miles between her and the forest, taking the edge of her back by running in her shifted form.  
  
_Leah?_ It’s Jacob.   
  
_I think it’s past your bedtime._ She mocks him, hearing his mental laughter.   
  
_Nessie was having trouble sleeping_ , the care in his voice doesn’t anger her anymore, instead just being somewhat annoying. She realizes then his focus on the tight grip on his back. _I was taking her for a walk. Bella and Edward are watching. But what is keeping you up? Taking a break from the studies?_  
  
_I’m worried about a friend._ At that moment she’s bittersweet happy that she has never seen Camille, because she doesn’t feel like sharing her image. All her mind has as a reference to go to is the image of a young woman writing on the window, as she always imagined since that first letter.   
  
_And_ that’s _your friend?_  
  
_Don’t fucking snoop around, Jacob._   
  
He starts to laugh, then his whole line of thought is interrupted as an image comes across his mind, flooding over everything. It’s the woods in front of him, but there are sparkles of light where, just seconds ago, was complete darkness.   
  
Just as it happened, it’s gone from his mind, and she tracks his thoughts as he gets back into awareness.  
  
Leah can sense his awe.  
  
_Renesmee powers are evolving. She’s able to create the images she puts in someone’s mind. Small changes, but if it keeps like that..._ There’s pride in his voice. Leah feels concerned.  
  
_That sounds like a hallucination._ She isn’t mocking him, or the half-vampire kid, this time, just making an observation. _It could end up being something... powerful._ She admits, finally.  
  
Leah can feel his gloating, his pride for his imprint, but also the sense he has to keep her safe, listening to Leah’s concerns.  
  
_Her mom has a shield and her dad reads minds. It won’t surprise me if she ends up with the strongest of both._  
  
_Resume was always a strong child,_ Leah teases him, and he laughs, but they both think about how miserable Bella was looking on those last days as a human.   
  
_You’re lucky you never called that out loud. Nessie doesn’t mind the jokes about her own name, but Bella freaks out._  
  
Leah chuckled. She actually had called her that over a few phonecalls, but that meant she had been luck enough for Bella not to be around.  
  
_You mean I’m lucky her dad hasn’t snitched me._  
  
Jacob laughs, then pauses.  
  
_Don’t freak out, but... are you ok?_  
  
Indeed, she does feel herself getting tense at the question.  
  
_It’s just, I mean, you sound ok. I have never seen you sounding more ok before._ He explains.  
  
_Is it_ that _weird that I am?_  
  
_Yeah? Kinda._  
  
Her mind moves quickly over the sound of engines working and wax seals breaking and the sight of the world under her and local rivers of places that aren’t really local to her.  
  
_Getting out was really good to me._  
  
_I’m happy for you, Leah._ She watches his thoughts going towards his surroundings and how aware he is when Renesmee lets out a yawn. _Gotta go._  
  
_I should get some sleep too._ This is how she says goodbye, before shifting back and walking back to the farm.   
  
Three more days go by before the next letter arrives. Leah’s alone at home, Connor went to some exposition happening in town with his date, who now she knows, is called Travis.  
  
She almost trips on the way to the door, thanks to the mailman, and holds the envelope in both of her hands. It feels heavier than usual, if just barely. Her steps to the bedroom happen as  
something else, all her attention on the paper.  
  
_If she’s good enough to write she is good, Leah. Calm down._  
  
Still, she eagerly cracks the seal. Among the well quality yellow pages, Camille is now using there is standard printing paper, which she doesn’t peek over, deciding to read things with context.   
  
She starts:

_“Dear Leah,_

_I’ve never had such a close friendship with someone before. I don’t even know how you look like, and yet, I trust you. Isn’t that funny?_  
  
_I’m glad you trust me as well, sharing your pain with me like that. Your gone pain, I mean to say. It makes me absurdly happy to know that you feel lighter, that I had any meaningful impact on your presence like you had in mine. The Universe really knew what it was doing when it put us on the same path. Until now I never understood how a friendship could feel like it was meant to be._  
  
_And that’s why I know I should be honest with you and clarify all of your curiosities on my behalf. I promise I’ll address everything you went over in your last letter._  
  
_Even the scary things._  
  
_Yes, I was a theater kid, how did you guess? I have a fling with the drama, what can I say. If pouring down wax on an envelope or carefully sewing gowns I don’t have where to wear do the trick for me I’ll keep doing that._  
  
_Just as well, I find you really interesting. Reading your words bring joy to my days, friend. I’ll stop gushing about how happy I am to know you at some point, don’t worry. You won’t need to reprimand me for that one._  
  
_Leah, I know we are over the whole “I think you’re not going to reply to me after that”, but I’m hesitant to do so with what I have to tell you now that you told me you were born and raised in La Push, that that’s where your ancestry is from. I think the best way to show you this is by these paragraphs I’ve read a few months back, before I had even written that first letter, so I scanned those and attached them along with the letter. For context, my family has a short, long ago, history in La Push, going through one generation after the colonization of the area, during the late 1700s and early 1800, this being a very late aunt of mine, called Serafina. I tried my best to not crop everything that was relevant, but my ancestor's calligraphy is worse than yours at times, so some things are my own interpretation. Here it goes:_

_“The voice of all my mothers whispered my way to this coast, so far from Salem’s that it feels like another continent is between us, just like the first of us to cross the ocean, though they tell me about each step they gave to get here._   
_The French are a blunt folk, stressed about the natives from this land. I avoid the French as much as they avoid me. I see the ways they look at me when I walk by, even if I have not done anything to them or they kind, even if I would offer my assistance if so was required._   
_The cultural diversity of the tribes here remind me of the early accounts from the mothers, about huge family gatherings with smoke and spark in the air. Those were always hard to imagine, but they tell me it is real, and when I see them like that, it’s easier to believe._   
_They don’t trust me, and I don’t blame them. I look like my forefathers, and those did not offer kindness to these people. But each group notices how the other avoids me, and sometimes it earns me sympathy from individuals. I sit away from both, hearing the blending of two realities. I twist towards the earth and the roots, and they led me to the woods._   
_The French are scared of the woods. They talk about monsters and demons. The only demons I see walk with the monarchy and have red eyes. In the forest, all I see are healthy animals and pleased spirits. Once, when I was walking through it, the following occurred:_   
_I heard a whimper and saw a huge white wolf caught in a trap, but I did not fear it. I stop, and the echo of all my mothers is deafening. They tell me this is something I should not be seeing. They tell me it is something I do not understand. They say I’ll make them really mad. That I'll be hurt._   
_I don’t see what they say. I gather herbs and ask permission before I approach._   
_The white wolf watches me with a piercing gaze. I apply herbs. I break the trap with assistance of Lydia. I watch, amazed, as the quickest healing process I’ve ever seen occurs, the white wolf also watching. Then it walks away. I stand. The voice of my mothers tells me they’ve never seen any creature like this, that not even our guardians look like that._   
_A man appears from where the wolf left and I see the wolf’s spirit in him. They are the same, he tells me, for he does not see that I see, and he thanks me for my aid. We speak about herbs and tales. I ask about the wolf in him. He tells me they are the protector of this land, and that it needs more help than ever. I ask him how I can help, that I can break more traps if needed._   
_He hears and thanks me, but insists that I leave this land alone._   
_I do. Someday, when I become a mother of all the children that walk after me, I’ll tell them the wolf is kind and wise, and that I did not run from fear, but because I recognized in his tone great advice.”_

_I drew a wolf before I even made the connection, and now I wonder which of my ancestors were trying to warn me about you, Leah. But just as Serafina, who ignores the warnings of the fear, I step forward. You’re my closest friend._  
  
_When you ask me what I am, I am someone close to the nature and to the past of all those that came before me. What we are received many names, and nowadays I don’t really use none, just try to live my life as a simple historian, but history tells me that once I’d be burned as a witch, Leah._  
  
_I tell you that I know even if I’m wrong. I would not dare to hide even the slightest suspicion of you. In turn, I tell you what I am, so we keep to stand on even, honest ground, during our friendship._  
  
_Does this change us? Gods, I hope it doesn’t. You told me it takes a lot to scare you, and I want you to prove it. I’m not scared, and neither should you be._  
  
_(I’ll answer every question you have about this.)_  
  
_I’m hoping you will stop tearing your hair out and tell me all about how the world looks up when you see it from above. I’ve been on a plane once, for a family trip, but I was really small and I don’t remember much._  
  
_I feel like moving to the other topics after this one is in bad taste, but I’ll. I did promise to address everything, after all._  
  
_I love our comprehension of one another, Leah. How things... align, when we talk. I really like that about us, too._  
  
_You being aware of your flaws and wrongdoings is brave and beautiful, Leah. It means you are a great person. I don’t see what’s not to like about that._  
  
_We are both our own person despite all the rest, and I’m glad we get along being ourselves._  
  
_If you’d like, I can try to recommend you more songs based on others you like, if you’re able to help me out with that._  
  
_Oh, Leah. If I tore out your heart you cracked my head open and took me apart, helping me realize I am, in fact, myself. When I’m able to remember that you became my friend for me, things become so much clearer._  
  
_To answer about my fears... I usually have a very clear impression of my surroundings, and how safe I am in them, like a very advanced gut feeling, so to say. Recently, however, I feel like it’s gone, and I’m getting a little paranoid._  
  
_I told you my family is close, and we are as individuals, but because I’m the only one with true access to the ancestors and because it skipped my mothers, they mostly detached themselves from it. My mom joined a really weird group, probably with good intentions, but whenever I mention something about our ancestors she brings it up and something in my stomach feels off, probably because she made Luce sign in and insists that Saph and I follow the same path. I don’t know if it’s related, but sometimes I feel like there’s someone following me, even if I look around and there’s none. As I said, it sounds a lot more like paranoia, but being aware doesn’t help it._  
  
_(To ease your worries about the two weeks in between our words I’m putting my phone number at the end of the letter, so you can save my number and I yours, if you want it. I do say that me giving my number is in no way me saying I want to quit the letters. I’d miss them a great deal, they feel much more personal than messages._  
_I’m speaking as if I know you’re going to answer, but after these one-sided revelations, I’m afraid that’s not the case.)_  
_I hate knowing some random fuckers disturbed our letter schedule. I hope you threw a punch for me at some point. (I can’t help but tell you I got a moment of concern after you when I started reading that, sorry. But yeah, it was funny, after that.)_  
  
_Great, Leah. Stay here, then._  
  
_Let’s keep screaming together._  
  
_Affectionately,_  
  
_Camille.”_

Leah’s mind froze. Half of her brain is going over _you’re my closest friend_ and the other half can’t understand the first one, criticizing her priorities, when Camille knows, she truly _knows._  
  
And she has secrets of her own.  
  
Camille is also something in between. It makes sense, now, how well they understand each other. Both of them don’t really belong where they are. It seems fit that a friendship would work like that.  
  
But she knows. Leah isn’t supposed to tell a single soul but her only friend knows, and learned it in the most bizarre way she could come up with.   
  
By having literal ghosts living in her head and telling her so.   
  
She feels dazed, as if this is some sort of really weird dream she’s going to wake up from at any moment. Leah even pinches herself, but that’s the reality she is in.   
  
One where her first friend, her closest one, can be the closest it can get, because she knows.  
  
Leah didn’t break any pact rules.   
  
And Camille knows.  
  
And Camille is a witch. Leah has never heard of witches and has no idea what is real or not. Considering how much Hollywood gets wrong when it comes to werewolves (and even vampires, on that matter) it’s probably not much.  
  
Leah gets away from the letter to go downstairs and drink some water, trying to recompose herself.   
  
_Camille knows and told you you’re her closest friend after knowing._  
  
She washes the glass and tries to focus on the remaining of the letter.  
  
When the first wave of shock comes the rest crashes in, and Leah skips through the stairs and stares at the number on the end of the letter, just after her friend's name.  
  
Her heart jumps in her chest. Would call her ruin everything?  
  
_You should call her. Not because you’re curious about her voice or anything, but because she has to save your number somehow._ She rationalizes. _Camille might not even pick up, considering how time-zones work._  
  
Leah doesn’t check the timezones, knowing it might make her lose her courage.  
  
She sits on the mattress carefully, hesitant towards the keys on her phone. Every beat of her heart is a dial on the phone.  
  
Then it’s calling. Her movements are slow, careful, as if she’s holding porcelain instead of metal when she puts her phone against her ear.  
  
“Hello?” Leah almost can’t hear the voice against the way her heart trembles, and she can’t understand why she’s so nervous. _You’re not going to lose your friend because you made a phone call. Get your act together._ Camille’s voice is modulated, easy to hear.   
  
“Camille? It’s Leah.” Her own voice, in comparison, is deeper, but not that much. They both don’t have high pitches, it seems.  
  
“ _Oh._ ” Leah listens as her breath hitches, then at when she nervous laugh. Leah realizes she’s laughing along, and that it eases the pace of her chest. “Hi. How... how are you?” Her voice still has an awkward edge to it, and Leah thinks hers probably must-have, too.  
  
“I’m fine. I hope I didn’t call at a bad moment. I just got your letter and I wanted to make sure you could, huh, save my number, in case of, you know, you feel like you need to call, or something.” Her voice still sounds unnatural to her own ears.  
  
“Right.” Another nervous laughter. Something about it is contagious, Leah thinks, because she chuckles lightly. “This doesn’t mean we will stop sending each other letters, right?”  
  
“And disappoint your drama side?” Leah feels more like herself when she’s able to joke, and the laughter on the other side of the line, more natural, satisfies her, knowing she was able to make her humor come across. “You’ll have to wait for my answer.”  
  
“That’s great. You know I need to practice all the writing I can, for my self-help book.” Camille retorts, and once more Leah laughs for a short moment. “I should not hold you from answering, then.” Her voice drags itself for a moment, slower.   
  
“Yeah, I should go and write with my chicken scratch.” Leah provokes another snore out of Camille.  
  
“Yeah, you should do just that.” She teases. A pause. “Thanks for calling. It was good to, you know, have your number now. To hear how you sound like, too.” She returns to speak a little awkwardly, like she was stumbling across the words. Leah can understand the feeling all too well.  
  
“Don’t worry. If you need to call, don’t hesitate. Ok?”  
  
“I won’t, Leah.”  
  
Leah stops in silence for a moment, and so does the young woman on the other side of the call. She forces herself to speak.  
  
“Bye, Camille. Till two other weeks, I guess.”  
  
“Until those two weeks then, Leah. I can’t wait for it.”   
  
They hang up.  
  
Leah looks at the minuscule number where the time of the call was and how disproportionate it was from the way she was feeling, then takes a deep breath and saves Camille’s number.   
  
She gets up, going to grab the notepad, when her eyes glance over the CD on the counter, by the radio. Leah puts it to play and writes her answer with the songs in the background:

_“Could you tell I was still in shock when I called, Camille? Good chat, by the way._  
  
_It felt good to know how you sound like._  
  
_This last letter of yours really made me realize how much that this connection we have is born by trust. I'm glad I ended up with your letter, I really do._  
  
_I’m not going away. I confess that reading it scared me in a very different way of seeing your illustration, or you figuring out my feelings did. Because you know secrets that aren’t only mine._  
  
_I’m held by rules I can’t tell, and to go around them is something impossible, so I won’t be able to tell you everything, but I’ll tell you everything that I can._  
  
_You’re right about me, Camille. What your ancestor saw was probably how it happened. Considering how prone the area is to geographical mess and how historically speaking it must have been disturbed as well, it was probably advice regarding to that. We are protectors, after all, and he must have felt like he owed her for her kindness._  
  
_(The parallel, though, is something I can’t shake. You also took me from a trap, didn’t you?)_  
  
_Camille, I don’t what about you makes your drama side endearing instead of pretentiously annoying, and I don’t care if I don’t find out at this point._  
  
_It’s so weird that you know. It’s even weirder than you are... what can I call it, supernatural, as well. I don’t know anything about what you tell me you are, which leads me to think that we were never enemies at some point in time, and that’s always very reassuring. I don’t even know what questions to make, because I’m that ignorant on the subject. If you could clear things up to me, I’d be grateful._  
  
_As for you gushing about our friendship, it makes me feel less awkward when I do the same, internally. We may be the odd ones of the bunch in more ways than one, but we connected in all ways that matter, and knowing that you appreciate it makes me feel less embarrassed to tell you this sort of thing._  
  
_( ~~I’m not really good at being an appreciative friend, even if I appreciate your words so much. I hope you have patience with me while I figure this out.)~~_  
  
_Honestly, Camille. You thought I was going to get scared of someone who complains about the wrong type of notebook hurting your arm? What do you think I am, a coward?_  
  
_(I’m not scared of having you around. The opposite, however, is a terrifying concept.)_  
  
_I’ve flown for the first time during the hiatus between my last letter and yours. I still haven’t truly piloted it for more than a few minutes at a time, but I’m getting there._  
  
_When we are up, Camille, the whole world feels a little disturbed. It blows my mind every time thinking about how I’m off the ground. It feels like a release, like something I was always meant to do. Like freedom. I think you’d like to see it from above, the way the treetops look when you are looking down at them instead of up. Piloting is also something that I’m discovering I like, and the real deal feels very different from the simulator. There are some things technology just can’t fake, I guess._  
  
_Our friendship works not in spite of who we are, but because of who we are, and never what. I don’t see that changing anytime soon._  
  
_I understand why you asked for us to keep with the letters, even after having your number. I thought I didn’t, but now that I’m writing I see how more articulate I can be in comparison to the phone call._  
  
~~_Not to mention that the phone call doesn’t have the satisfaction of breaking the wax seal, though hearing your voice is good._ ~~  
  
_I guess now, along screaming in each other companies and sharing scars we will also have to hold each other together, then. I hope this mutual comprehension doesn’t break, Camille._  
  
_I read about your fears and I believe in them. I believe in you. I almost wish I didn’t because if that was the case then I would think you are safe, but I know that you are perceptive at things, and so I must worry. Don’t hesitate to call me if you need someone to talk to. Please. I’m always here. I mean it._  
  
_Don’t worry, Camille. After what I did to them I bet no one in a thirty-mile radius from me will dare disturb this farm again._  
  
_(I didn’t actually harm them all that bad. It was, after all, a self-defense moment.)_  
  
_I’m staying. It’s good to know that so are you._  
  
_See/Read you in two weeks._  
  
_Leah.”_

A week after that letter is sent, Connor sets Leah in charge of the take-off for the first time. He still assumes control after that most of the time, with the exception of the periods where he looks at her with a warning glance and lifts his hands, she assuming control for fifteen, thirty minutes at a time.  
  
They still work with a day of the week off, and on that day, either doing chores, or Connor is off to a date.  
  
He’s always nicer the next day during class, still over-explaining everything.  
  
To his credit, Connor over-explain to everyone, not just Leah. She now is used to sitting at the backseat of his senior clients, and even to them, he’s always going over some random detail, probably something they had more difficulty with when they were just starting.   
  
She answers quizzes, studies theory, goes over the manual and all the procedures.   
  
Her favorite part is seeing it all working along when she’s actually up there, in control.  
  
It’s on a day like any other when Camille calls for the first time.  
  
They were on the plane. Leah had just performed the take-off and Connor was leveling the wings, pointing it out to her how, in clouded places like the north this was something as instinctual as breathing.  
  
And then her phone rang.  
  
She looked at the name on the screen and felt her heart twist inside her chest.  
  
“You can pick it up, I don’t mind.” Connor is halfway through the phrase when Leah is holding the phone against her ear.  
  
“Hey, Camille.” She’s alert. “What happened?”  
  
“Can you stay with me on the call until I get home? I’m feeling weird.” Her silvery tone is hesitant. “Are you busy right now?”  
  
“I’ll be here. I told you I would.” Leah reassures her. “Talk to me, Camille.” She asks, patiently.   
  
“I’m going back from the campus. I don’t actually live there because my parent’s place is not really that far and I wanted to be around Saph, I feel like I can set up a good example for her, I mean, as much as someone like me is able to.” Her words flow with ease. There is a nervous edge, but it comes from a place of anxiety this time that wasn’t present on their first phone call. “I’m close, five minutes or so, but then... I started feeling weird. My ancestors are making a fuzz, too. So I thought that talking to you would help. It helps.”  
  
“Good.” Leah finds herself nodding, even if Camille isn’t there. Leah finds herself wanting to be able to do more than a phone call, but it isn’t like she can cross the country on a plane right now. “How long since the feeling started?”  
  
“As soon as I left the class. I was still on campus when it started.”  
  
“And there’s no one around?”  
  
“A few random people, but I haven’t seen them before, you know.” A pause, a higher sound of cars, Camille must be crossing down the street or something. Then, she speaks again.

“Perhaps distracting myself can help. Talk to me, Leah.”  
  
“Not that I don’t want to, but shouldn’t you stay aware of your surroundings?”  
  
“I’m aware enough, trust me. What are you doing right now?”  
  
“Flying,” Leah smirks, watching the world from her window.   
  
On the other side of the line, she hears Camille giving out a very gentle sigh.  
  
“Would you describe it for me?”  
  
“No.” She spats out, but there’s no anger, just amusement. “What will the point of the letters be if I just keep spoiling them?”  
  
“Then what will you tell me, Leah?” Camille’s voice teases back. Leah wonders if she’s smiling.  
  
“I bought the Mirage. The album, I mean. Are you close to home?”  
  
“One block. Did you like it? Got any favorites?”  
  
“I like _straight back._ Why don’t you take a bus or something?”  
  
“ _...and you will fly like some little wing, straight back to the sun_ ,” Camille sings as she hears the mention of the song. “I like to walk.”  
  
“Were you just going to hide to me that you’re a singer, as well?” Leah listens to her laugh and how it eases the knot on her chest. “I also like to walk, but in your case, it’s just counterproductive.”  
  
“I’m a woman of many talents, Leah. One of them is getting quickly home with my own two legs.”  
  
Leah chuckles, then stop when she understands.  
  
“Did you arrive already?”  
  
“Safe and sound. Hope I didn’t ruin your class. Say sorry to your teacher for me.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it, you did not crash our plane this time.”  
  
“I mean it, Leah. Thank you for picking up.”  
  
“I told you I would.”  
  
“I’m going to hang up now.” Camille clarifies. “Until your letter.”  
  
“Until then.”  
  
The call is over. Leah lets the phone linger against her ear for a moment longer, then fits it back inside her pocket again.  
  
By her side, Connor leaves out an exasperated sound.  
  
“Wow.”  
  
“What?” She raises a brow.  
  
“You... are different. Really different.”  
  
“I’m sorry that I forgot to put my phone on silent.” She isn’t. Camille’s tone is purposefully loud enough to wake a wolf, but she won’t tell him that.  
  
Connor shakes his head.  
  
“I wasn’t talking about it. Now, before your friend there was interrupting us, where did we stop?”  
  
And they return to class, as if nothing had happened.  
  
That night, Leah dreams she’s in front of the wolf. Of her own version as a wolf, with its torn mouth and the ripped iron crossing its gums.  
  
Human Leah approaches Wolf Leah and cleans her wounds.  
  
When she wakes up, there are tears prickling on the sides of her eyes, which she is quick to rub away with the back of her hand and resume her schedule.  
  
She goes downstairs to find a note on the fridge:  
  
_Surprise day off. I’m out. -Connor_  
  
Bored, she tidies things up, calls her mother, calls Mary to thank her for the opportunity, and take a nap, all while the radio soft hums along her side.  
  
She wakes up and the house is still empty. Leah fusses around the house for something to do, finds a tool kit inside a spare closet down the second-floor hall, and does her best at fixing the unhinged door.  
  
That’s what she’s doing when the mailman stops by.  
  
“Clearwater?” He asks. She nods. He gives her a familiar envelope. Thanking him, she stares at the white wax.   
  
Leah forgets the door, for now, to go sit in the living room and read Camille’s letter:

_“Dear Leah,_

_Any shock you might have felt by that interaction passed by unnoticed when compared to how excited I was._  
  
_Thank you for calling, and for picking up. You have the most distracting voice (and I mean this in every good way)._  
  
_We will maintain this trust then, Leah. Let’s shout everything but our secrets; those we will whisper to each other and each other alone._  
  
_Deal?_  
  
_To know that I am right does not make me change my views of you, just of the world in general. I don’t know if that’s the same with you, but when you are something else (nonhuman), there is this sensation that you are alone in your kind, in your own sense of oddness. To see that’s not how it goes is life-changing. I think your presence, in many ways, ceased loneliness of many kinds that I was unaware of feeding in my insides._  
  
_Don’t give me all the credit when it comes to our own traps, Leah. You’re always a phone call away now from saving me, aren’t you?_  
  
_If you recall correctly, friend, I’m afraid of saying anything too much in case my letters are intercepted at any point, but I’ll do my best to say things in ways I know you can understand, and if I ever need to call you again, I may clarify any subject you might miss._  
  
_My family is not the only one. There are many practitioners with all sorts of costumes and culture, and I speak only for myself and the practice that my own lineage has followed all these years. I haven’t actually met others that do what I can personally, but the records tell me I’m not the only one, and I like to believe their descendants survived just like I did._  
  
_(Obviously, there are people that claim that they are something when they aren’t, but that’s so often in all paths of life, regardless, that I don’t feel like it’s worth mentioning.)_  
  
_That being said, I have a spiritual connection with the world around me. It doesn’t manifest as yours does in the physical plain, happening with variant amounts of strength, you could consider, depending on the will of the energy around me, how energy I have stored, how close I am to my ancestors. Everything can impact what I am and what I do, but I do have some tricks up my sleeve that happen regardless of these elements, just by me being me. They’re difficult to master and I haven’t had many opportunities to practice this kind of craft, but I know it's there when needed._  
  
_I try to avoid any practice or energy that’s violent of any kind, but I won’t hesitate if that’s my only option. It rarely is, considering I have access to the wisdom of so many pacifists that came before me, which I’m grateful for._  
  
_It’s not seldom that I think about giving you a hug. Imagining you saying the words “gushing about our friendship” out loud shall be one of these times. I shall, in return, remain gushing._  
  
_I’m really glad I met you, Leah. I don’t think the fact that we met through letters diminishes that at the least._  
  
_I’ll wait all the time in the world while we both figure out how to work in this friendship. As you can imagine, being the weird kid in the ways I’m weird has never made me many friends, so I think we are both equally inexperienced in this._  
  
_(I realize I may be over sweet when it comes to my treatment to you, so please, tell me if that’s a bother.)_  
  
_The spirals in notepads are a great danger to society, Leah, and you should not overlook this threat. The fact I could even stand it in the first place long enough to write you a letter proves just how resilient and powerful I am._  
  
_Sometimes, Leah, your words make my heart feel like it’s in free fall. Then, before I can question why, you enrapture me in such a sight._  
  
_Seeing the world from above is something like that. It’s so weird to think about it, isn’t it? We were never meant to fly, but we build cages with wings and now the skies are ours._  
  
_I’ll be daydreaming about seeing trees from above for some time, now._

_Your comment about things that technology can’t fake is just right. As I discover more about the past with all the research I end up doing in my courses I find that some things look irreplaceable, even if they have pros and cons. One example could be phone messages to letters._  
  
_I’m glad you understood where I stand in this, standing with me in between these two, never completely rejecting one or the other, but enjoying both._  
  
_I don’t see that changing, Leah. If even our worse truths only served to bring us closer together, I can’t fathom something that could be able to tear us apart._  
  
_You’re perfectly articulate on the phone call, if I must say._  
  
_And to update you on what happened that time I called, I’m okay, but my parents happened to give me weird looks just as I got home that day. I’ve always trusted my parents, and I love them very much, but I’m concerned that something may be going on. I don’t want to believe this, but I won’t be one to doubt my feelings. I read too much about what can happen when one of us ignores our gut._  
  
_I hope I won’t have to keep you on the line for these awful things much longer, but I might be calling you at some point._  
  
_So it is really good to know that Leah “I-can-terrify-robbers” has excellent self-defense mechanisms and has my back through all my concerns and worries. It does ease my mind, and adds another reason as to why I wish you and I lived closer to each other._  
  
_Though if that was the case, I don’t know how I could convince you to keep up with the letters, as I would gladly stuck by your side._  
_Thankfully,_

_Camille.”_

  
There’s a lipstick kiss at the end of the letter that creates the same kind of soft pressure around Leah’s heart than it does when she reads some of the things that Camille writes. Usually, the things she would not think about for too long, because they were confusing and Leah dismissed them as Camille's endearments she was simply not used to yet. Which made her nod in agreement as the other told her that she could be extra sweet.  
  
Leah waits for the sensation to fade, but the best she can get is to a light tug across her heartstrings that refuses to leave her chest, so she shrugs, recomposing herself, and then proceeds to write down her answer:

  
_“Camille,_  
  
_I enjoy listening to you, even if your reasons for calling worry me sick. You don’t have anything to thank about. Really._  
  
_Deal._  
  
_The world is filled with all sorts of things. I always thought I had seen my fair share but now if you tell me there are reptilians around I would not be surprised._  
  
_(I would, actually.)_  
  
_Talking to you always brings an ease to my chest, and sometimes I miss not having met you sooner. However, I like to believe your universe talks and how we met at just the right time._  
  
_Makes me feel better._  
  
_I don’t know how much you’ll be able to talk about this with me, but I’m intrigued as to the dangers you may face. You cleared up in this letter that you suspect it's the organization that your parents affiliated themselves to. I want to be able to help you, and I think a good asset would be to understand what you are dealing with. If you can speak about it, of course._  
  
_As to yourself... You gave me more questions than answers, but I guess I can’t ask for specifics, so I guess I’ll just try to figure this one out. Nonetheless, it’s good to read about you, to get to know you fully, even if it’s cryptically._  
  
_I confess that you’re the first person whose sweetness doesn’t make me gag. It’s... what would you call it, endearing. I don’t mind it. I dare say I even like it coming from you. If that’s your adaptation process, feel free to be as sweet as you like._  
  
_Camille, I’m so sorry for my ignorance towards the threat of spirals. You see, there’s so much I don’t know about the true dangers of the world. Thank you so much for warning me about this awful, awful creature._  
  
_Please, be safe. I know you don’t want to think the worse of your parents, but if something happens, tell me, ok? We will figure this out._  
_You don’t need much convincing. Who would’ve thought that writing letters would become one of my favorite activities?_  
  
_I’ll watch your back, Camille._

_Leah.”_

She sends the letter in the next day, not wanting to leave the place empty when the door is messed up.  
  
On the week after that, Connor goes through the motions of teaching her how to land the plane. There are more theoretical activities, but they are less and far in between one another, focusing on applying the studies with practice.  
  
Sue calls once, to ask how things are going. Leah shares that she’s, according to Connor, more than halfway through the course, and her mom celebrates, knowing that soon her daughter will be around again, even if just for a short while.  
  
On their day off, she goes for a walk. Leah wants to shift and run and ease the worries she has over Camille, but she knows that she doesn’t want to deal with Seth or Jacob teasing her for making a friend, and that sounded like just the kind of thing they would do. So she walks, and runs, going back to the property and running back and forth through the paved area meant for the takeoff.  
  
That night, in her dreams, Leah is still running. There’s no light in her dream, and when she realizes it she stops and stretches her arms, feeling walls creeping in around her.  
  
She’s walking around a maze, her footsteps echoing. Leah hears a whisper and tries to follow it, but every time she’s able to make a turn, the sound seems to come from the opposite direction.  
  
“Leah? Leah?” The voice makes itself audible. It’s Camille.  
  
Leah feels the hairs on the back of her neck going up, her hands onto fists by her sides. She can’t change inside the dream. She’s dependent on her human instincts.  
  
A turn.  
  
Another.  
  
One more after that.  
  
Camille’s voice never grows louder than that. Leah screams back, but it’s like she’s underwater.  
  
She wakes up without having found Camille, without getting closer, and her heart feels possessed by physical pain. Leah holds onto her chest with one hand, trying to keep it from aching, and realizes that she’s covered in sweat.  
  
Her day starts with an early shower after that.  
  
During breakfast, she talks with Connor, if only to distract herself from her unsettled mind.  
  
“Once more, what are the requirements for me to complete this?” She indicates with a movement of her arms around her surroundings.   
  
“Forty hours on flight, twenty of those with me, and then I can give you my approval.”  
  
“How long until you think I’ll get there?”  
  
“If we keep this rhythm, a month. Have you thought about what you want to do after this?” He shoves more food inside his mouth, recalling one of their first conversations  
  
_Something adventurous,_ it’s where her mind goes, but she has to be practical.  
  
“I like the set up you have here.” She admits. “I want to save up to be able to get something like this, eventually.”  
  
He nods, approvingly.  
  
“A few acres isn’t so expensive right now, if you have how to save.”  
  
“What work do you think I could do in the area?” She inquires.  
  
“You? Anything.” He snores. “Now, what you want to do seems like a different matter.”  
  
“C’mon, you know the industry better than me. What can you imagine me doing?”  
  
He gives it a thought, honestly considering her question.  
  
“I could see you doing something like transportation, or air taxi.”  
  
She nods. Transportation matched Camille’s answer. Taxi, not so much, but it's not worth it getting stressed over hypothesis.  
  
“Is it too hard to get a job in the area? With my lack of experience, I mean?”  
  
“I don’t think so.” He scratches the back of his head. “I hear about offerings often. If someone asks me about a recent pilot I’ll send them your way.”  
  
“Thanks.” She says, then feels the urge to add. “I mean it. You are teaching me for free and helping me in all of this... It’s a lot.”  
  
Connor avoids her gaze for a moment, then sighs.  
  
“When Mary suffered the accident... I always wondered what could have happened on that day. I was close enough to push her out of the way, when she jumped. I knew I could. It crossed  
my mind at the time. But I was scared. I was a coward.”  
  
_You were,_ Leah thinks, but she doesn’t say it out loud. To someone that didn't just healed, to a human, being coward had a lot to do with survival instincts.  
  
Instead, that’s what she says:  
  
“Mary would not have blamed you. No one would, Connor.”  
  
“I know.” He cringes. “But I don’t feel like that.”  
  
“So, is it working for you? Helping me?”  
  
He nods.  
  
“It makes me feel less like shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, this chapter was supposed to be out a few hours ago, but the site crashed for me or something? Well, I hope it's ok now. So, now we reach the point in my draft where there are things to be messed around in larger chunks, which means I will get back to writing, rewriting and all of that jazz. I don't know when the next update will be, but posting usually helps with my motivation, so hopefully I can get things figured out soon. Once more, thanks for everyone reading and I hope you're enjoying this!  
> (Oh, and apparently, I messed up while posting last night, so if you were reading this fresh out of the oven, I'm SO sorry. Please remind me to never try to mess around with lack of sleep. Hopefully I got a hang on AO3 and will stop messing up, but if anything happens, I'll let you guys know.)


	8. Meet Camille

The next morning, Leah skips watching another ready-to-graduate pilot to finally work on the door, as she had assured Connor she would do that, despite his insistence that he could hire someone to do that.

Labor helps her concentrate and keep calm. It had been a tactic discovered by accident, on those days of earlier anger, that doing something manual had to make her stop shaking in order to be able to do it properly, just like giving a glass of water to a crying child.  
  
Once more, Leah feels like her priorities are distorted, when it comes to her thoughts.  
  
Camille is all around, in a way that would be concerning if it didn’t seem so right.  
  
Before getting her number and all that represented, Leah could not justify thinking about her as a matter of worries, so, when her mind started to run the _this happened far too weirdly and fast and it should not feel this comfortable to confess your feelings to someone you’ve never seen,_ or the classic _how the hell did the pain I spent years lamenting over faded like ashes over just a few relatable phrases from a really quick to form close friend,_ she would remind herself that they were long-distance friends, that they were close, and the fact that they felt so close so fast even with all that distance was just a matter of coincidence, of universal casualty.   
  
Which sounded like something _she_ would think, and then Leah got back to focusing on another study sheet and try to distract herself from the frequency her thoughts returned to her friend when she should have been concerned with the Skyhawk.  
  
Now, however, her mind leaped back and forth from Camille’s concerns. She wanted to understand more where that came from, wanted to see what she could do to help, wanted, more than anything, that it was just a case of paranoia.  
  
But how could it be, when they were involved with inhuman things so deeply in the core? What were the odds that human business would concern Camille so deeply?  
  
In turn, it also bothered Leah, who tried to piece the very vague information she had. It sounded like a religious organization, like a _cult._ It sounded like more than half of Camille’s family was heavily involved and pressuring the remaining relatives to become members as well.  
  
Without more information, however, Leah did not have much to work for. The only consolation was that they had a quicker way to talk right now, in case of emergencies, and that, for all she knew from the journals Camille had from her relatives and that small fraction she had read, they knew what leeches looked like, so, if it was ever something like that, she would warn Leah.  
  
The idea of any of them getting close to her made her skin crawl in repulse, so she takes a deep breath and finishes screwing the door handle together. Her mind had drifted away as she did so, but now it was ready, and her concerns had not turned her into a giant wolf.  
  
Leah spent so much time with internal anger that she felt she could control the impulses much better than any of the rest of them, which made sense inside her head.  
  
 _I suffered to get here. It's only fair I get some perks out of that crap._  
  
She gets the door done just in time for her to listen to the aircraft returning to the ground, and so she skips to the kitchen and drinks some water as to not partake in a weird goodbye moment between Connor and his latest client.  
  
A few minutes go by, the sounds of the door opening and closing and all of that happening in the background, and then Connor appears in the kitchen, toolkit in hand.  
  
“I see you fixed the door.” He mentions, balancing it in front of her. She captures his hidden meaning.  
  
“I forgot to put it back, my bad.” She does not want to look distracted because then he would suggest for her not engage in flying today, and Leah felt like she needed to focus on something else, to let the concerns for her friend take the shotgun for at least a moment.  
  
Leah takes it from him and quickly puts it where she found it. He waits for her in the outside balcony area.  
  
“Ready for today?” He asks.  
  
“Watcha got?” She replies, tilting her chin up.  
  
“Just see.”  
  
That day, Connor makes her responsible for the whole process, from takeoff to the landing. It is a short flight, half an hour tops, but sitting on the driver’s seat and be in control of the aircraft for the first time, beginning to end, feels like a sweet victory. To have every scrap of knowledge she studied the last months translate into information that kept it afloat, and that she knew what each of it represented...  
  
Indeed, exhilarating enough to not let her anxiety fester for that half an hour.   
  
However, as soon as they land, not even Connor’s celebratory beer for this new achievement is able to quiet the unsettling feeling that grows into Leah. There’s that nag on her heart, constantly pulling down, that makes Leah want to run, but she keeps in place, setting her feet steady on the ground.  
  
 _Don’t be paranoid, Leah._  
  
It’s harder said than done, when the days stretch and there’s no letter to be received.   
  
She attempts to distract herself with Connor, whose easy smile seems to flutter from his face. He was always an easy go lucky person, but dating made him surprisingly more so. It was good for Leah, who was afraid that he would become particularly annoying, as people always did.  
  
 _Now you are thinking about imprintings. Normal people aren’t so obsessed, and you aren’t forced to see that obsession by being inside their minds._  
  
And it’s that that makes her suggest to him:  
  
“You should bring him some time.” She shrugs. “The house is yours, after all.”  
  
And he cheers.  
  
“Yeah, I think I should.”  
  
Connor proceeds then to go in another tangent, about Leah’s development on training and how close to the finish line they were, now being only a matter of muscle memory and filling the hours than anything else, that they had already gone through the thick of it, and Leah admits to herself she’s only half-listening.  
  
Later that day, when she’s in the room, she stares at her phone, her fingers lingering over the call button, Camille’s number on the screen. She found herself doing that more and more since the last letter, but every time she just throws the phone on the mattress, not wanting to deal with that new line of thought that so often coursed through her mind.  
  
 _You could just chat sometimes_ , a tempting voice tells inside her mind, _it would not disturb the letters._  
  
And it was the desire that made her walk away from the phone, because it was concerning how _much_ Leah wanted to talk to Camille, and how little it had to do with her friend’s safety, though that was also important.   
  
Really, what would she even say if she called?  
  
 _Oh, I had a dream the other night where I was lost and you were my salvation. Does that make any sense to you, my witchy friend?_  
  
Yeah, that does not sound like a good way to break the ice.  
  
Leah tells herself this is just how friendships are supposed to work, that you always feel your heart tugging itself towards a phone or a letter in irrationally strong ways, and that she’s only aware of it now because she had never felt it first-hand before.  
  
She almost believes it.

*

Four days later is when Connor finally brings company. Valentin, his mysterious boyfriend, is just as tall as the redhead, with ashy hair, glasses, and a chipped tooth. Leah made lasagna that day, and they eat and talk. She’s glad that they aren’t overbearing as a couple, though the glances they share make something twist inside her chest that she can’t really name, and she swallows the feelings of jealousy, not of any of them, but what they share.  
  
There’s small talk about how they met, and all of that. There’s small talk about Leah’s flying, because that includes Connor’s work, and mentions of Mary as well, which leads then into Valentin talking about his own family and works. He manages an art gallery, and mentions they had had dates over there.   
  
Leah is better at eating and nodding than actually adding something substantial to the conversation, which does not bother them.  
  
Surprisingly, they don’t annoy the hell out of her as well.  
  
After that first dinner, his presence becomes standard in the farmhouse, and when it isn’t, Connor leaves a text telling her she’ll be alone for the night.  
  
Another week passes like that, with Leah flying every day to try to take off the edge. She does so in order to not shift, because she knows she has never felt so concerned for anyone else before and if she thought Jake and Seth would give her a hard time for having a friend, a friend she felt so invested in would drive her crazy. Jake particularly could be very creative when wanting to take a piss out of her.  
  
 _It’s not like he would mock you like you did when he was in love with Bella._  
  
The thought makes her freeze.  
  
 _Because, duh, obviously you’re not in love with Camille. She’s your closest friend, and you are concerned about her, and you’re unused to those feelings. That’s all there is to that._  
  
Leah does not have time to analyze these feelings, because the mailman shows at the door and her mind turns into a lighthouse with one clear focus of curiosity and concern, because every one of her fears come crashing into her mind, and Leah is hoping there will be answers there.  
  
Turns out, there are:

“ _Dear Leah,_

_I’ll kill two birds with one stone and explain about the organization, at the same time I’ll tell you about what has transpired around me since my last letter._   
  
_They are called the Rising of the Brave. I discovered that after one of its members approached me when I was leaving classes, two days ago (meaning two days before your letter arrived here). When I asked how he found me or what made me look like I would like to affiliate myself to any institution (I asked very respectfully) he told me I had been suggested by an anonymous source._   
  
_When I got home, my mom was smiling ear to ear, asking me how my day went._   
  
_I don’t think she was intending to hide that from me. We sat down, as a family, and had a chat. Apparently, while I was busy, you know, studying my ass off, my parents ended up being able to recruit Saph to the Rising of the Brave, and now it was only a matter of convincing me._   
  
_I decided to play calm and ask them what that meant. Leah... It’s bad._   
  
_I really hoped it would not be, but it is. Apparently, they all praise this idea that, amongst their followers, there is a smaller category considered as “Prospects”, and they can be raised above from the rest. Everyone goes through tests and is encouraged to find a prospect, because apparently, after being one yourself, being associated with one is also considered good. These pieces of information were more than enough to create some tumult within the ancestors, a lot of the older ones that do not speak with me that often were providing me with whispers of worry, but I tried to be reasonable and believe that my family would not get into something really stupid._   
  
_So I tried to gather more information and not jump to the worst conclusion, asking about the tests. They tell me that there’s a team of “Risen” and that they are everything you’d ever want to be. They will assess, together, the potentials (the people that can become prospects), and amongst them, there’s this secret leader, that does not participate in the events but guide them in distance, and that the prospects get to meet them. I asked why, but my parents did not have an answer for me._   
  
_Leah, for the first time I felt alone among my family. I want to believe that my sisters aren’t as involved with this, and regarding to Saph I do, but I know Luce, and how close she is with my mom, being the youngest and all, so I’m not sure._   
  
_Nonetheless, my parents are now bothering me to go to a meeting. I’m avoiding them by spending more hours inside the college. Right now, I’m writing to you in our library._   
  
_I think of going just once, just so I’ll be able to rest at night and ease my heart, but all my ancestors are really against that idea, so I don’t know. I really want to see that it isn’t what they tell me it is, because I know I won’t be able to stop worrying about it until I see it with my own eyes, as I, being the only one who reads the family diaries, cannot really ask the questions my sight can answer. So that’s where I stand right now in this, and if there’s any development with this in between your next letter and mine,_   
  
_I’ll update you. Now, replying to the remaining of your letter..._   
  
_There are many things in this world, good and bad, but I don’t know if aliens are included. I wonder if our own anomalies came from something extraterrestrial sometimes, because the origins of the things we are are always so unclear, don’t you think? If our blood once came from the stars it would only make sense._   
  
_It’s funny that you say that, Leah. Sometimes I think about all the little things that happened just before your letter arrived. Having read about La Push, or the urge that I had to send my own letter, or every walk I gave and the small things I listened, and I can trace back small signs that were telling me that you were just around the corner. I see them now, in hindsight. It’s like I was waiting to meet you specifically._   
  
_I hate being paranoid. I hate having the urge to censor myself when I’m talking to you because we met by ripping open our agonies and frustrations and now I feel like I have to keep my fears from you and that’s not right. Considering how you never mentioned a broken seal, I can only assume I’m being overly cautious, and thank you for being so patient with me while being so. Maybe I should relax a bit. I should try to see what my family has gotten into. I must be overreacting. I want to be overreacting, and we can move from this phase and keep talking about other things, you know?_   
  
_Leah, you really don’t realize how sweet you can be, do you? You really make me feel appreciated as your friend. It’s weird that you don’t notice it, really._   
  
_But then, you and your feelings seem to walk on opposite sides of the same road sometimes._   
  
_You protect me from weird institutions and I will always protect you from the devilish spirals. Got it._   
  
_I’ll make this letter quite brief because I know the post office here will close soon, and I must hurry to get it sent today, then go and face another round with my family._   
  
_Good luck with your flying._

_Hopefully,_

_Camille.”_

  
Leah does not reply with a long letter. It almost feels like a note, even if it has average length, but in between her nervousness and the feeling of powerlessness that comes from seeing someone almost in trouble, there’s just not much to be said. Even if all she wanted these days was send a message and receiving that instant gratification, she knew what the writing meant to Camille, and so, this is her reply:

_“Camille,_

_I feel like I should let you know that this organization does not sound good, even by common standards. I can understand your desire to go based on the fact that you want to be sure it’s just bad and not completely awful, but the fear that it might be the latter, suggested in your wording makes me worry about you, and so, as a friend, I don’t mean to sound controlling, but my piece of advice would be to be as far away from that as you can. Still, I’ll pay attention to your warning signs and I know that you know that I’m a phone away at all times, so just... be careful._   
  
_I can’t say the universe prepared me for your arrival in my life, but honestly, I’m not unhappy about it. Knowing myself, I’d have run from the idea of being open to someone, seeing vulnerability as a weakness, and refusing to get to know you better, which, by consequence, would have led me to much, much more time sulking on my previous mindset of anger and pain. For that, the fact that you were a surprise was a good thing._   
  
_For all the other things, such as considering that you are as well my closest friend and I’ve never felt so comfortable sharing my thoughts with anyone else, then I can regret not knowing you’d come._   
  
_(It was very lonely before, Camille. You helped me not only with your friendship, but the kindness you have allowed me to see how to treat people around me and not just lash at anyone that got too close.)_   
  
_I already gave you my two cents on this. I’ve believed in you from day one. Considering how you had the insight to figure me out, I would not put it past you to sense other things, even if I still do not understand that aspect of you that well. I understand, however, that I can’t ask you about this until we get over this situation and so I won’t pressure you into that. Though I’d like to ask you more about yourself in other regards, even if I’m not good at wording my questions. If you need the distraction, I’d be more than glad to know about you, and who you are. It’s funny that I feel like I know you so well and that we have this proximity, but there’s so much I don’t know, and only you’d know how much._   
  
_Sweet is not a word often placed in a phrase with Leah. I don’t think anyone would have thought that about me before, unironically, which I know it’s your case, which makes me really curious as to how you see me, sometimes. It’s more of a you word, always willing to listen and be empathetic towards what you hear. Or, in our case, read._   
  
_Thanks, and good luck on... everything else._

_Leah.”_

  
The following days move on a haze of flying around and around. It’s just as good as it is exhausting.  
  
But even when she’s going to bed, or when she’s eating, or when Connor and Valentin are joking around, or when Sue calls, or when Jacob checks on her, a part of her brain isn’t there, and the tug on her heart seems to force her to stare at her phone, or at the door, waiting.  
  
As the days go by, she starts to get more irritated, shadows of her old self resurging that are harder to keep buried within. Whenever the couple acts too lovingly, Leah ghosts out of the room, though this is leagues better from any previous behavior.   
  
So, when the next letter arrives, it would be not only a relief to Leah’s growing concerns, but to everyone around her, that, even if they don’t know the reason, can realize the shift in her attitude.   
  
It doesn’t mean it’s that good of a letter, though.

_“Dear Leah,_

_I start here by saying that I am sorry._   
  
_Two days before your letter arrived, Luce asked me to go to a meeting with them. She begged, and even if I knew it was my mom’s doing, I just could not deny, my concerns and all. Saph already went a few times, and she stuck by me, talking about the art progress she’s been making. Apparently, she’s just a fan of the whole thing as I am, which is none._   
  
_Then, a series of odd things happened._   
  
_First, Saph dragged the conversation in a very odd way to artists, and started asking me about Munch. I did not want to think that was a clue trying to be passed smoothly in front of my parents in the car, because that would imply my middle sister knowing the existence of supernatural creatures of some sort. (He has very telling names in his work, and as someone that has to study art for a large part of my degree, it was something I picked up. Even if you don't know his work, you can imagine what it's about.)_   
  
_But she knew, somehow. I still have to have this conversation with her, even after everything._   
  
_Indeed, Leah, what we feared happened. The monarchy Serafina mentioned letters ago? Three of its representatives were there, watching at all times._   
  
_One of them stared at me. It wasn’t for long, but it was time enough that made me want to drop all restrains and get the hell out of there._   
  
_I started applying for a dorm room, only if to have another place to be other than home, but I don’t know how that will be useful if they have an eye on me._   
  
_I know all of you told me not to go. I should have listened. I’m always being followed right now, I feel like, and the only reason I do not call you when I feel it now is that I don’t want them to hear you, and my ancestors tell me they can, even from afar._   
  
_So, the meetings are every fortnight. There was another one that I wasn’t present, but when they returned, mom and dad were all talking about how one of the Risers asked me to go next time, and that it could mean I look like a prospect--”_

For the first time, Leah does not finish a letter.  
  
Instead, she runs to the phone, glad Connor wasn’t around to see her freaking out.   
  
She dials Camille’s number.  
  
“Leah? Leah, thank gods.” Her friend's voice is out of breath as if she’s been running. “Help me.”  
  
The tug on Leah’s heart becomes a sinking anchor towards her core.  
  
“Tell me how.” She begs, not caring for any more context.  
  
“Do you know how to... to fight against them?” Camille's voice cracks, and Leah can feel it's shatters inside her chest as something real.   
  
“I’m made to do it.” Leah makes some quick math inside her head, then move around the room, grabbing her backpack and going downstairs towards the kitchen. “Can you wait six hours? And send me your coordinates?”  
  
“Leah, I can’t drag you into this mess.”  
  
“Camille, don't even start saying that.” She stops the flush of swear words that want to come out by putting some snacks into the bag and her first aid kit. “Can you tell me what’s going on, since your letter?”  
  
“They chose me as a prospect. They are going to kill me. I, Leah, they can’t do that. I can’t...”  
  
Leah feels like breaking the entire kitchen.  
  
“I’m going after you. Are they looking for you right now?” She would have no hope to finding her intact if that was the case, and the mere thought makes Leah want to stop any preparations and just run, but she calms down with relief that pours down her as cold water when listening to the reply.  
  
“No. There’s a ritual that has to be performed next meeting, but I feel like they are always around, now."  
  
“They probably are, the fucking leeches. Act normally. Act normally for the next six hours, until I get there. I'll get you, ok?”  
  
“Ok, Leah, I, just," she stutters for a moment, before settling for something. "This is far from what I want to say but thank you." Then she recomposes herself. "But please, tell me, in case the worst happens, how can I delay them?”  
  
“Fire.” Leah can feel herself trembling already. She wants to reassure her friend, but in this situation all her energy is focused on just not panicking, reassuring herself over and over that she will get there in time. “And dismembering. You won’t be strong enough for this part. Just... stay hidden. Update me as things happen.”  
  
“And how about you? Can you really do this?”  
  
“Obviously." That the idea of not being able to do anything for her sent Leah's fists into a shaking state was out of the explanation. "Have some faith in me, Camille, and send me the coordenates. I have your back.”  
  
“ Thank you, again, Leah, I mean it. See you soon.”  
  
In any other scenario, the words would’ve made her heart flutter, but not this time.  
  
“Stay safe.”  
  
She hangs up. The message comes a minute later.  
  
Leah stares at her phone and makes another call.  
  
“Connor, I’m stealing your plane.”  
  
“Leah--”  
  
“I’m sorry, but I’m not really asking for permission here. You can fight me all you want after I’m back, but I need it now.” The only reason she was calling was that it made her feel a little more decent as a person that she was doing so.  
  
There’s a pause. Leah anticipates screams, but they don’t come.  
  
“Ok. Where are you going?” He seems completely collected.  
  
“Canada.”   
  
“I’m going to make a few calls so no one bothers you, then. You have a lot to know about international policies.”  
  
She’s surprised.  
  
“You’re being really chill about it.”  
  
“No, Leah. I trust your judgment and I don’t think you’d do this unless it was important, but if you scratch the Skyhawk chill is the last thing I'm going to be.” A pause happens, menacing, even if Connor was the last thing Leah would consider as scary. “You might scare the shit out of me and that’s a reason I’m not making more questions right now, but I will want to know about this later.”  
  
“Sure.” She will come up with something. Leah finishes putting energy bars and a medical kit on her bag, then zips it.   
  
“You’re lucky I filled the tank yesterday.” He hangs up without a goodbye, which she’s just as thankful for.  
  
Leah runs towards the garage and opens it manually. She sits in the cockpit and throws her backpack on the passenger seat, stares at Camille’s message, inserting the information on the respective places. The phone taunts her, wanting her to make one last call - to any of her so referred brothers. To Jacob or Seth, or even someone from Sam’s pack, like Paul or Embry. She knows any of them would pick up, that any of them would help.  
  
But she also knows she would spend too much time explaining, and every second separating her and Camille was a liability.  
  
 _I’ll deal with that shit later._ She promises herself.  
  
And starts flying.

*

Half an hour in the air, the only thing buzzing is the air with her anxiety.   
  
Another one goes by before it’s her phone buzzing, and Leah makes sure the plane isn’t about to fall before reading:  
  
 _Just updating you, I’m good. At home._  
  
Leah feels relief pouring over her veins. She hopes that things stay like that for the next five hours.   
  
Obviously, she wasn’t ever going to be that lucky.  
  
Forty-five minutes later, there’s another message from Camille.  
  
 _I’m still good, but I have a really weird gut feeling. Just in case I’m reorganizing my stuff._  
  
Time becomes measured not by seconds or minutes, but by intervals of looking over the six-pack, of checking the panels, and mainly, Camille messages.  
  
 _Gut feeling did not fade. I should not be in my room when you pick me up. I’m sending you the location to the college heliport, I hope it can fit your plane there._  
  
Leah's jaw tightens at that message. She needed to propel that thing on air, she did not have sharp blades rolling her around.  
  
But she can’t get mad at her friend's instincts, not when they got it right so many times. She would figure things out, waiting for the text messages.  
  
As for her trip, she was barely not noticed. Apparently, Connor was the actual witch in that situation, because every call that went through had his name and requested a simple confirmation. She would be committing crimes if it wasn’t for the guy, she had to admit it.  
  
Another message, only with the new coordinates. She corrects them with a few glances, thanking the universe for her decent memory.   
  
Leah flies over the ocean, a sight that would have been breathtaking had it not be for all the anxiety that was festering on her. So similar to the sea she saw in her home town, on the other side of the continent.   
  
She had time to take that view in and confirm her taxi business - thanking Connor mentally for the thousand times, it seemed - to the Canadian border before the last message she received from Camille:  
  
 _I’m hiding in the library. It’s just under the heliport. I don’t know how long I’ll be alone here._   
  
After that, every second seemed to stretch for a lifetime, even if she knew she was ten minutes away from her goal, it still felt like hell. When she saw the series of buildings that so clearly looked like the college, she felt like she could finally breathe again.  
  
 _No, not yet. Not until you know Camille is safe._  
  
She finds out the heliport half through her gaze, half through the insistent tug on her heart, and assess for a moment that the whole floor could propel them upwards.  
  
Leah won’t worry about that right that second, because as soon as she lands, she can smell it.  
  
 _Fucking leeches._  
  
She jumps from the plane, changing as soon as the engine is off, knowing that, for all Camille knew, if there was any risk of being seen, she would have warned her of such. Even without that reassurance, the building was so old that Leah doubted it had any advanced security system.   
  
_Leah, where are you?_ Starts Seth inside her head, and she dedicates only a moment of attention to him, a brief instant as she’s running the emergency stairs towards the last floor.  
  
 _Too far for you to be of any help. If you’re just going to distract me, get the hell out and tell the same thing to Jake. I’ll explain everything after._ It’s impossible to keep secrets from the pack, and if Seth remained one more second inside her head he would be into the loop, but she could not worry about Camille and explain Camille at the same time.  
  
 _You better find a way to explain after, then. Jake will be pissed when he finds this out._  
  
His voice silences inside her head, just as she gets to the hall.  
  
Even if Leah had never been inside a uni before, the floor is exactly what she imagined it would be, with predictable tiles crossing the floor in opposite colors, lots of doors leading to classrooms, an entrance to the stairs leading to the next floor, and a wooden door with the library sign in it.  
  
The only thing disrupting the scenery is the vampire running towards the door, who stops as soon as he smells Leah, his face contorting in disgust.  
  
She leaps before he can touch the doorknob, throwing his stony figure across the hall, the clear indentation of the act dismantling the floor under them.  
  
Unshaken, the vampire stands up.  
  
“Go away and I will forgive this indiscretion.” Proclaims the vampire. She growls, knowing that words would not be audible to the disgusting creature in front of her. Leah makes sure that the library entrance is right behind her as she avoids a sudden movement for the vampire. As they surround each other, both looking for weak spots, Leah notices things Camille mentioned and things of her own:  
  
He has red eyes, the recently fed kind. For his physique, it’s pale like most vampires, the most remarkable thing a crooked nose. For his clothes, there’s a pin with a phoenix symbol, which makes sense considering the whole “Risen” bullshit. It was really a cult, then.  
  
“Can you stop this nonsense?” He spits in frustration. Leeches are so good at thinking they are the strongest creatures around and so bad at controlling their instincts that this one does not surprise Leah when he goes for an attack. Prepared, as it was bound to happen sooner rather than later, as he moves his arms towards her, Leah chomps one of them out of the body, chewing the ashy stone before spitting it out.  
  
The vampire screams words, but it’s too late. Broken as he is, surrounded by the pain of His broken limb, it’s not difficult for Leah to finish what she started. She destroys his other arm skillfully, though not as thoroughly as the other one, just enough so the pieces cannot mend together before she gets the chance to burn them. After it, she does the same thing with the legs, separating each one in at least five fractions and throwing them in opposite directions across the hall.  
  
“I’m going to get my revenge. We all are.” The head is able to swear beyond his pain. Leah would scoff if she could.  
  
Instead, she chews his brains out.  
  
A moment of relief is all she gets before the sound of a broken window reaches her ears, before a new scent.  
  
It does not come from the hall.  
  
Desperately, she turns around the library door and pulls it down in one move, lashing inside it.  
  
Many elements reach Leah at once:  
  
The library in itself, as old as the remaining of the building, a series of shelves in a dark wood, just as the door she put down. An old window is broken, another vampire coming across it. Hair pulled back, phoenix pin on his clothes, arms stretched ready for attack.  
  
And, with her back turned towards Leah, towards her left, Camille, engulfed in fire.  
  
It takes a moment to figure out that Camille isn’t burning, for her heart to stop racing in worry. The flames surround her in a circle, and she has a bent elbow from her left hand, her fingers moving at the same pace as the flames. The sight, even from behind, is one of greatness, exhaling more power than any mortal she had ever seen before, and more than most other beings she had seen. With her posture high, not faltering even in front of a vampire, Leah feels admiration setting on her chest, just another reason to respect her friend as she did.  
  
As beautiful as the sight is, as impressible as taming the flames around her is, it was not an infallible concept. Considering that the vampire could have taken her from it in a moment, had she been alone.  
  
But as she’s not, it creates just enough hesitation for Leah to run to them, faster than any other shifter she knows, faster than vampires, pushing him down, once more making sure that Camille’s presence is directly behind her, not caring if she got too close to the flames, but skillfully enough that that doesn't happen.  
  
A part of her wants to warn her friend that _this is going to be ugly,_ but once more, she’s not good at speaking in the current situation.  
  
“What are you?” Demands the vampire below her, and Leah won’t dignify the red eyed creature with an answer. She was angry at them, every fiber of her being repulsed at those creatures not only for what they were, but for what they were attempting to do   
with her friend. She wants to tear him to pieces, to burn every single leech that would dare get close to a hair on Camille’s head.  
  
 _Just kill him already, Leah._ It’s Jake’s voice inside her head, sounding almost bored.  
  
 _Seth could not just keep his mouth shut, could he?_ She tears his head apart, throwing it across the other side of the library. A small gasp from Camille is more important than any retort Jake could make, pulling the strings of her heart towards the witch, but   
Leah focuses on the task ahead, being the protector she knows her friend needs.  
  
 _You just referred to your friend as a witch. And you just killed two vampires by yourself. You have a lot of explanation to give, Leah._ Jake sounds impressed, and angry.   
  
_Don’t make me do this right now. As soon as I’m back in Washington I will explain, I promise._ Leah begs, knowing that she won’t be able to deny him if he pulls up his alpha tricks.  
  
 _Where the fuck are you?_ He uses his alpha tricks this time, but she can’t really blame him for that.  
  
 _Canada. The islands, on the other coast._  
  
 _Leah.._. _Deal with your shit. We will talk about it later._  
  
She does not have time for his tainting, being busy pulling arms and joints from stone apart as he was lecturing her.  
  
 _Will you shut up now?_  
  
 _I will._ There’s a grin on his voice that she can’t understand why. Jacob is quiet, but he’s still there, and it concerns Leah.  
  
Not for long.   
  
“You came right on time.” Camille’s voice appears from behind her, the sound of a breeze approaching her ears. _Safe._   
  
Leah turns around to see her best friend still surrounded by moving flames, the embers casting a glow on her figure beside the darkened library. If she looked like greatness a moment ago, now it was godlike, the way her whole being demanded to be looked at and adored. If a moment ago Leah thought she exhaled power, now she was casting it, going beyond the fire, moving every tectonic plate that Leah would ever step as to make their paths forever cross, manipulating the cords of gravity and pulling Leah to her core. If they screamed at the universe together, Camille at that moment was screaming at supersonic frequencies, telling that the universe was horribly wrong, that Leah had been horribly wrong to consider, even for a moment, that she was broken, and if she ever were, Camille took her shattered pieces and clung them together to keep her alive for this moment if any other, this moment that seemed what Leah had waited her whole life for. Every single pain that had lifted from her when they started speaking made sense, the pace of their friendship and its intensity, even at distance, made sense. Leah's _existence_ made sense.  
  
Because, as she stood, as their gaze met, in between fire and darkness, Leah realized that her best friend was her imprint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fresh out of the oven, if you consider the rewriting part of it. Grammarly, as always, remains being my best friend, even though I will never imprint on an app. Sorry for any mistakes I miss, and really, really, thank you for your comments. I see you, and I adore you already. Hope you all like it.   
> Also, this is a paralel universe where you can use your phone and pilot a plane at the same time because it's a universe with vampires and shape shifters.(And I only realized that wasn't a thing in our universe after I outlined this chapter, so it's too late now.)


	9. Backstories

Leah shifts back as soon as there are small leech pieces scattered across the library, safely enough for them to not start rebuilding.   
  
The fire fades into spirals of smoke until it becomes just a memory. Blue eyes that put every ocean to shame cling into Leah’s earthly ones and her head have only her own mind to it, but it seemed like it’s partaking into the loudest cacophony she’s ever been a part of.   
  
A part of her just wants to take in the sight of her, the ash and the force in all of its glory, even if all she’s doing is looking back at her. Another part is screaming _you’re not broken_ over and over.  
  
And a third part, a terrorizing one, is scared. Is scared that if she mentions it out loud, that this thing she wanted for so long was found, then it’s going to go away, and her heart can’t bear it.  
  
However, before anything is said, Camille approaches her and falls to her knees. There’s a large purse around her chest, which she opens and takes a thick shawl from it, covering Leah and reminding her that at that very moment, she had just finished killing two vampires and crossing the continent and now was, well, naked.  
  
It shakes her from her utter shock to regain her brain again.  
  
“Are you hurt?” Is the first thing Leah's capable of saying.   
  
Of course. _She needs a protector, after all, and you’ve never felt such a strong urge to keep anything safe in your life, not even yourself._  
  
In hindsight, Leah realizes that she should have been able to see this coming.  
  
“No.” Camille’s voice is a balm against her aching heart, calming that familiar pulling sensation. “Are you?”  
  
Leah shakes her head and gets up, tugging the shawl across her sides. Camille blushes for a moment, diverting her gaze, but then keeps her eyes on Leah’s, respecting her privacy.  
  
“We need to solve this situation. Do you have a lighter?” Bringing herself to the present scenario helped put her new, blossoming feelings at the back of her mind, like one safe keep a fragile relic.   
  
Camille chuckles for reasons Leah doesn’t understand, but she doesn’t need to right now. The mere sight creates sparks inside her chest, makes her want to roar out of joy.   
  
“Here.” She extends a lighter, and Leah thinks she got the joke, seeing the silver case engraved with the sight of a wolf. “What are you going to do?”  
  
“Collect the pieces.” One thing at a time, Leah reassured herself, until she felt like she could behave like a rational human being. Wanting to hug Camille and never let go would not help in the current situation, she reminded herself for the thousand times since their gaze had crossed one another.  
  
“Is it dangerous? I mean, can I help?” Camille offers promptly.   
  
“Technically no, but I’d really rather you not touch them,” Leah admits, and realizes how hard it is to have a filter when it comes to this life-changing person in front of her.  
  
She can’t even think of the word without feeling her whole body shiver.  
  
“You save me, you get to make the rules.” Camille jokes, standing by as Leah walks across the library. “What can I do in the meanwhile?”  
  
If Leah had thought Camille put the sight of Icarus to shame, in Camille's eyes, the shapeshifter holding two heads of vampires in one hand and a mess of limbs on another seemed like a sculpture of Artemis and Perseus combined, the great warrior with their enemies on their feet.   
  
Leah doesn’t feel so, her right arm struggling to grip the stony legs and arms.  
  
“Just make sure I don’t forget any fingers.”   
  
Even in the somber atmosphere, it takes a laugh out of Camille, and the sound alone makes everything worth it.  
  
They trace back the destruction Leah brought on her way, the ruined doors and tiles that mark her fights.   
  
“There aren’t cameras here, right?” Leah makes herself ask as she walks side by side with Camille, who, in turn, looks at her as if she’s carrying groceries instead of limbs. On their steps, something falls, but luckily, it isn’t any toes. It’s the Risers pin, which Camille grabs out of instinct.  
  
“Long story short, no.”  
  
Leah scoffs. They reach the rooftop.  
  
“There’s a long story about that?”  
  
“Nothing really exciting.” Camille walks back as Leah puts the pieces on the floor, watching once more how she works effortlessly, focusing only on her hands and face as she did so, blushing when she see's the dimples on the back of her neck. The ancestors would start giving her a hard time if her gaze lingered anywhere else, she knew, if only to taunt her. _Your best friend just got over a really traumatic heartbreak and saved your life. She has no place for your silly crushes, Camille,_ she could imagine more than one of them saying. Or it could be just her conscious speaking this time. “Only a severe lack of funding for this specific building.”  
  
Leah doesn’t answer with words, but her nod suffices, before she burns the conjunction of limbs, the sickly sweet smell on the air. She stands by Camille, both of them noticing and not mentioning how their hands are almost touching, making sure the flames are devouring the creatures. At some point, where the limbs look more like dust than anything else, it seems to suffice for Leah.  
  
“I’m going to, hum, put on some clothes. You can get on the plane.”  
  
Leah opens the passenger door to get her bag, glad she had put an extra change of clothes there amongst the other items. She walks after the fire and behind the spot where the door was located before putting her clothes on.   
  
Her mind is still in shambles, barely organized enough to pilot the Skyhawk, but she would have to make do with that.   
  
The feeling of something so precious and breakable was burning on her chest, brighter than any pyres, closest to the ring of fire than any other kind of flame she could have imagined.  
  
Leah shakes her head, takes a deep breath, and returns to the plane.  
  
“I don’t know how your powers work, but let's hope you’re lucky and we are able to fly from here.” Leah provokes, pushing the engine. Camille laughs awkwardly.  
  
“In my defense, I... I guess I don’t have one.” They both laugh. The plane stutters at the edge of the building, but otherwise finds altitude flawlessly. A moment of silence follows, a short one. “You saved my life.”  
  
 _You’re the reason for mine._ Leah wants to reply, but that fragility is still there. Leah knew that Camille needed a friend and a protector, and as someone who watched from the bleachers how imprinting acted, it just did not seem fair to put her through that given the whole context they were messed in.  
  
Perhaps after everything was solved, Leah could introduce it to Camille.  
  
Leah would not dig deeper than that to figure out the reason behind her excuses.  
  
“Just a Thursday.” Leah jokes.   
  
“Thank you. Really.”  
  
“I have your back,” Leah reassures her. “Don’t stress over it. Now, tell me, what did I miss?”  
  
“Oh, right, letter delay,” Camille remembers. “Ok, I’m going to recapitulate in the last letter I sent you and we go from there?”  
  
“Sounds good.” Leah nods, trying to look calm even if the mere sound of Camille’s voice made her heart stutter inside her chest.  
  
“I fucked up and went to one of the meetings.” Leah has to struggle to not look towards Camille and focuses on the controls in front of her, but from the corner of her eye, she can see her gesticulating. “I know I should not have, but,... honestly? They pulled Saph into that, and I wanted to make sure it was safe for her, but she figured out it wasn’t before I did, and I wanted to believe she was wrong, but I get there and there are those two... from right now, and another three there, and that’s to mention that the leader wasn’t there, as it seemed. I survive through the evening, and I think things are ok, but then another letter I sent you is returned to me with a broken seal,” she must have seen the concern on Leah’s face, because Camille is quick to add “I didn’t say anything that could compromise you there,” she gulps, but Leah does not sense a lie there, even if there is something to be found. She won’t pressure her friend right now, not when she still has this very fragile sentiment blossoming inside her which she has no idea how to care for.   
  
_Be what she needs. Worry later._  
  
“Well, just as I received my own letter, my parents started to open bottles and celebrate because they got a call insisting that I appeared at the next meeting, which, according to them, meant they saw me as a prospect. I did my best to not freak out and raise any suspicion, called you, and the rest... Is history.”  
  
There’s a lot Leah wants to ask - most about Camille - but she forces herself to gather the information that could help them.   
  
“Do you remember anything else about this organization?”  
  
“It appears to work locally, but considering who we are dealing with, I’m not that sure.” She admits, pauses, then look over the window. “Just so we are on the same page, where are we going?”  
  
“I need to return this plane to Connor, my instructor.”  
  
Camille giggles.  
  
“My first ride is on a stolen airplane?”  
  
“Borrowed.” Leah corrects, turning away for one moment to wink at Camille, getting another laugh from her friend. “Then I’m going to get you to La Push.”  
  
From the corner of her eye, Leah sees Camille adjusting to her seat, hugging both of their luggage on her lap. “You should rest until then.” She adds, because she’s not the one dealing with jetlag.  
  
“As if, Leah.” She rolls her eyes. “Tell me, what should I expect from La Push, supernaturally speaking?”  
  
“In La Push, you’ll not find anything more weirder than this.” She points at herself. “We have a treaty that--” Leah realizes she has no idea how to explain it in a way that won’t terrorize   
Camille.  
  
“What?” Her voice expresses only confusion.   
  
“I’ll get back on that.” She delays, trying to figure out how to mention vegetarian vampires. “Honestly, there will be questions about you. There is no record of witches as far as I know, and if you want or even can explain the whole gist of it, the packs will want to hear. I’m also curious, if that helps.” Leah presses her lips together after a smile. Leah wonders if the easy smile she found since looking at Camille will ever drift, but she knows the answer already. Imprinting just made everyone that much more annoying, and now she was a part of that.   
  
“Oh.” She nods. “I should really explain this to you.” Camille taps her temple with two of her fingertips.   
  
“I should warn you that every word you say will be known at some point by my pack. We can’t really have secrets.”   
  
“Leah, you can’t keep making me curious like that!” Camille teases. “Ok, I’m going to explain the things I left out of the letters, then you do the same. Deal?”  
  
Leah thinks about the next five hours and a half they have already. Leah thinks a thousand things at that moment, from how much she wants to just turn and look at Camille, from how effortless their friendship was.  
  
It seemed obvious that it would develop in imprinting, in hindsight. Obvious that her heart would develop to protect her greatest friend. That the universe would put them in each other’s path.   
  
Leah nods with a quick movement, and Camille starts.  
  
“I’ll explain to you how things happen. I won’t explain what started this, because I don’t know, and no one I have access to knows.” She prefaces. “You know how in school, they tell us that energy can be manipulated and transformed, but never destroyed?” It’s a rhetorical question, but Leah nods once more. “That’s the basis of everything. I do magic, and magic is the manipulation of force through energy. When it comes to magic, there are a few types, but I can skip this for now. So, basically, I manipulate energy and transform it, but in order to do this, I need to store it. The more powerful what I want to do, the more energy I have to have stored, sort of like an exchange of sorts. There are many ways I can store energy, but my preferred ones are candles, because they are faster, but I can charge stones and... Honestly, I’ll spend too much time if we keep on this part and I think you got it. In emergency cases, a witch can use her own body energy, but it's really draining, so we only resort to that if it's, well, an emergency.”   
  
“That makes sense.” Leah agrees, even if she knows she’s getting the shortcut version, but Camille expands as she keeps on explaining.  
  
“Well, that’s how to explain the way I’m able to make things happen in the physical plane. This isn’t all I’m about, as I mentioned there are other kinds of magic. There’s the magic that comes from me, which we call the affinity, and every witch has this one thing that they are better doing. And then there is ancestral magic. Once a witch dies, her energy is anchored in things she had a strong connection during in life, the skills she had a drawn to, and the next witch. Every generation has only one witch at a time, and this process happens every single one of these times, so each new witch is stronger than the past ones, because there is this possibility of connection. I was born in a very weird time, because my aunt, the generational witch, was still alive, so things were really weird for a time, as the power fluctuated between us. It wasn’t bad, and I learned a lot through it, but we all agree it was an unusual adjustment.” She massages the side of her head. “Anyway, as I was saying, they can help me from all sorts of things, from giving me advice occasionally to actually extending me the abilities they had when they were witches, though that usually requires me to have built a strong connection with them. It’s easier for me, because my affinity has a lot to do with the spirituality side of things, but still, I constantly need to work on the connections with them."  
  
“You said they were... quite a lot, in the beginning,” Leah recalls.  
  
“They were. Yeah. Pushing boundaries with every grandma, aunt, and or cousin that also happened to be supernatural and comes to visit your head from time to time is hard, but I got there. I get their side, though, I’m the only one alive and we have a large tendency of dropping dead, so--”  
  
Leah's heart stops.   
  
“What?!” Her grip on the wheel is tight, her breath coming out ragged.  
  
“We were persecuted for most of history, Leah." She's quick to remember. "And after that, well, it could be a coincidence, but accidents happen.”  
  
Leah shakes her head vicariously.   
  
“You won’t drop dead.” She says in between clenched teeth.   
  
“Sorry. I should not be saying this when you went through all this effort to keep me safe. If it helps, I technically know I won't, but I can't really stop them from being concerned. I also am very keen on keeping myself alive.”  
  
“It’s good.” Leah can feel her jaw relaxing, how easily she could accept the argument. “If anything, it’s good you gave me the heads up. I won’t let anything happen to you, Camille.”  
  
“I know. You have my back.” Camille's voice sounds softer at that phrase, in a way that, wasn't Leah so concerned over every single thing, she would be repeating over and over inside her head.   
  
_And you have my heart,_ is all that she's able to form about the phrase, but Leah won’t say it.  
  
“I mean it.” Leah pauses. “Well, anything else you should mention?”  
  
“It’s weird, because I feel like anything else is minor now that I gave you the big picture, because this is all I know, so I’m trying to think what could be relevant.”  
  
“Say anything that comes to mind.” Leah suggests.  
  
“Sometimes I don’t need to call my ancestors, and outside stimuli will work to put them inside my head. Like a trigger. For instance, a few of more recent of my ancestors have been in airports or airplanes, and they wanted to show me the experience, so I’m talking to you and seeing things from the seventies and from the early 1900s inside my head.”  
  
“How do you deal with that?” Leah can feel the amount of care she spills on that small sentence, but if Camille notices, she doesn’t mention it.  
  
“It’s rarer these days, now that I got used to it, kind of like a TV in the background. Ouch, I should not call my ancestor's background noise. They _don’t_ like it.” She massages her temple once more, and Leah starts to realize the pattern. “Ok, I see spirits, but not in the medium, seeing dead people kind of way. I see manifestations of nature, of you, my guardian...”  
  
“Ok, ok, this next part I could use some explanation.” Leah interrupts.   
  
“Sure. It’s like an optical illusion. I have to look at it in the right light to see, sort of thing. So, let's say, I go into a field of flowers my grandma Lydia really liked, I can see her energy there, not her. And if I look at you,” she stops, doing just so, concentrating. It takes a lot of self-restraint and the thought that _you need to keep this airplane on the air_ for Leah to not stare back into those eyes. “If I really focus on this right mindset, I can see the wolf form you shift into.”  
  
 _If you really focused, could you see my life is bound to yours? That this inexplicable pull the universe created on our friendship manifested as an imprint on my part? That I’ll do anything to keep you from harm?_   
  
She’s not brave enough to ask.  
  
“So yeah, that’s the gist of it.” Camille shrugs. “Your turn.”  
  
Not having how to delay it anymore, Leah begins with a preface of her own.  
  
“I need you to not be scared by what I’m going to say. I know this will sound scary given what just happened, but I won’t ever put you at any risk.” She promises. There’s a silent moment, and then, carefully, she feels a hand on her shoulder as Camille stretches over.   
  
Leah understands every metaphor of butterflies in that second, when it stays, so light, and when it flees as she returns to her original position.  
  
“Leah, I trust you with my life. If you say something is safe, I’ll believe you.”  
  
The reassurance is intense, and at that moment, perhaps it was a good thing that Leah could not look back. She didn’t know what would happen to herself if she gazed at such strong emotions.   
  
“The shifters from La Push have a treaty with a coven of animal feeding vampires.” She spills, too fast, and dares to take a side glance to assess to Camille’s reactions.  
  
As expected, her breath tightens, before releasing.  
  
“How do you know they are not lying?”  
  
“Their eyes become yellow if they drink animal blood. The color goes away if they drink human blood. A instant giveaway. They are not allowed to kill anyone in their area, just as they are not allowed to get in   
La Push. If you don’t feel comfortable with the idea of being around them, you won’t need to be. I can handle things.”  
  
Another pause, but this time, when Camille speaks, there’s a different tenor to her voice.  
  
“You are telling me this because they can help us.”   
  
“I hope it won’t get to that, but yes, I’m hoping they might have a lead on the leader you mentioned.”  
  
“Ok.” Her voice is collected, calm. “Can you give me the gist of the situation, then? Just so I’m ready?”  
  
“Everything you want to know,” Leah replies, and as she moves over controls and checks things on the plane, she also explains how a vampire can be a doctor, and how they act like a family.  
  
It’s easy in the beginning, with the wolves and the mind sharing thing, and it's easy too even when mentioning the vampires and their extra abilities, but then the Renesmee subject pops up, and Leah does her best to explain imprinting without making it too obvious she knows it from experience. It feels like lying and lying to her feels bitter, sour against the strings of her heart, but Leah also remembers how she saw her friends falling towards the imprint pull and her own feelings on that matter, how they seemed to lack free will and choice.  
  
And if Leah needed to suffer so she would not take any of these things away from Camille, then it was a small price to pay.  
  
“Ok, so, recap.” Camille starts. “Mysterious human girl Bella Swan attracts the attention of a vampire that can read minds but not hers, and soon to be shapeshifter. Bella figures out she’s the human mate to a vampire, and she puts herself in harm's way to be around him, but he abandons her. But then he comes back, and there’s a vampire army that wants to kill her, and then you help eliminate said army, which, doesn’t surprise me at all,” her voice is that of a blunt statement, no sarcasm there “and then human and vampire get married, go on a honeymoon, Bella gets pregnant and everyone is rightfully terrified of what this child will be, Bella even dies giving birth, but then Jake, the leader of your pack ends up being the one to save the kid from the wolves, and she's turned into a vampire but then there’s this whole other vampire thing that gets solved because vampire-Bella has some vampire powers.”  
  
“Yeah.” Leah nods. The Cullen mess makes no sense out loud, but it was how that happened. “That’s it.”  
  
“Makes sense how quickly you believed me, then.” She snores, and Leah finds herself laughing too. The snore quickly becomes a yawn, and Leah remembers the timezone difference.  
  
“Ok, now that you’re in the loop, you can take a nap, you know. We still have two hours up here.”  
  
Camille opens her mouth to deny, but another yawn crosses her. It’s adorable, Leah thinks.  
  
“I don’t want to leave you alone, but I did spend some energy today.”  
  
“Just sleep, Camille.” She stops. “You can also eat something, if you’re hungry. There are snacks in my bag.”  
  
“You could’ve said so, like, an hour ago. I’m starving.” Camille mocks, rummaging through Leah’s belongings. “You did come prepared, huh.” She is still joking, but her voice is lighter.   
  
Then, she pulls out Leah’s old mp3. “You brought a soundtrack?”  
  
Leah glances at it, and scoffs.  
  
“I forgot to take it out. It’s there since... Since my lessons started, I guess.”  
  
“May I?” Camille inquires. At that moment, Leah feels like they are sharing letters again, a paragraph of constant worry, followed by a random curiosity about either of them. It would scare   
Leah to have that kind of ease with anyone else.  
  
But then, again, no one else could rip her chest open and tug at her heartstrings with just a glance.  
  
 _Who am I kidding? This all was set in motion long before today._  
  
Leah is too tired to process things and pilot them safely, so she prioritize the latter.  
  
“Sure.”  
  
Camille turns the MP3 on and starts browsing through Leah’s downloaded tracks. She doesn’t have lots of them, finding the whole process too much work when she can just listen to the radio, but she has favorites that helped counterbalance her emotions, or that just sounded good. Those are the ones Camille finds there.   
  
“NIN, I remember that one from your letter... Linkin Park? Oh, those are old...” her comments are more to herself, but Leah finds that she could listen to them over and over. “You have a very clear taste in music.” Her voice is louder this time, directed at her.  
  
“You can say it’s angry, Camille. I really haven’t updated my tracks since... since talking to you, and I have been listening to a lot of your stuff lately.”  
  
“Not all of this is really that angry. I like Seether.” Leah has only one track of them downloaded, another case of I listened to this one on the radio and it grabbed my attention. “Though I prefer _Fade Away_.”  
  
“Can’t say I know that one.”   
  
Camille nods, finishing the pursue of her songs, then placing the MP3 back in the bag. She settles to eating the cereal bar in silence, watching the cities below them.   
  
“Anything else you think I should know?” She asks, finally.   
  
_I have a supernatural connection with you that can’t be broken. There’s nothing I would not do for you. I connected with you through our words but this just sealed everything together._   
_Your center of gravity is capable of making the stars questioning if they are right to turn around the Sun. Everyone told me this feeling wasn’t confusing and they’re wrong, because I’m a mess. A happy mess, but one nonetheless._  
  
Leah stops her own brain before some of it spills out in words. If she’s confused about it, she can’t imagine how Camille would feel by knowing.  
  
“Oh, yeah, we need a cover story.” She quickly fills in the silence. “Connor doesn’t know anything supernatural, just that I stole his plane.”  
  
Camille shakes her head in disbelief.  
  
“C’mon, I think we both are more than capable of figuring something out.” She reassures Leah. “You’re my best friend and I called you for help.” Camille’s mention is casual, but even that small phrase is capable of making Leah’s heartthrob. Then, her face lights up with an idea. “Ok, I think I came up with something.”  
  
Camille starts to untangle a cliche tale of an abusive ex-boyfriend that was stalking her during her last semester of college that is so filled with small details that Leah can’t help but remember her first letter.  
  
“Is your mother in law called Linda?” Leah jokes, and the reference hits instantly, making the witch laugh.  
  
“You know what? Now it will be.”  
  
Even with the weight of a vampire cult on their backs and a non mentioned imprint, at that moment, Leah feels like she can figure anything out, as long as Camille is on her side.  
  
She can no longer imagine a life where she isn’t.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished this chapter much earlier than I thought, and I considered not uploading it just because it is so domestic and casual, but then I remembered it's christmas (for us), and they deserve to have a cute interaction chapter on christmas. Also, don't get too mad at Leah for hiding, she has attachment issues. I wish great holidays for everyone! 
> 
> (And if at any point there's something you want to say about this fiction out of AO3, I'm under the same username (lumesar) on tumblr, just so you all are aware.)
> 
> Last but not least, if anyone is curious as to what songs angry Leah listened to, I made a playlist out of the songs, mentioned and not mentioned in this chapter. Some of these songs are just about feeling the mood, and some can be stretched to fit into Leah's previous situation. With that in mind, here is it: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1l13rUg0tOmwDXK30xwmry (I might have spent a whole day looking for moody pre 2010 songs? I might, but there's it). There are any songs you guys think match twilight characters out of the soundtrack ones? 
> 
> Until the next chapter~


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